  A recent experiment by Minev et. al [arXiv:1803.00545] demonstrated that in a
dissipative (artificial) 3-level atom with strongly intermittent dynamics it is
possible to "catch and reverse" a quantum jump "mid-flight": by the conditional
application of a unitary perturbation after a fixed time with no jumps, the
system was prevented from getting shelved in the dark state, thus removing the
intermittency from the dynamics. Here we offer an interpretation of this
phenomenon in terms of the dynamical large deviation formalism for open quantum
dynamics. In this approach, intermittency is seen as the first-order
coexistence of active and inactive dynamical phases. Dark periods are thus like
space-time bubbles of the inactive phase in the active one. Here we consider a
controlled dynamics via the (single - as in the experiment - or multiple)
application of a unitary control pulse during no-jump periods. By considering
the large deviation statistics of the emissions, we show that appropriate
choice of the control allows to stabilise a desired dynamical phase and remove
the intermittency. In the thermodynamic analogy, the effect of the control is
to prick bubbles thus preventing the fluctuations that manifest phase
coexistence. We discuss similar controlled dynamics in broader settings.
