  This paper studies the stochastic differential equation (SDE) associated to a
two-level quantum system (qubit) subject to Hamiltonian evolution as well as
unmonitored and monitored decoherence channels. The latter imply a stochastic
evolution of the quantum state (density operator), whose associated probability
distribution we characterize. We first show that for two sets of typical
experimental settings, corresponding either to weak quantum non demolition
measurements or to weak fluorescence measurements, the three Bloch coordinates
of the qubit remain confined to a deterministically evolving surface or curve
inside the Bloch sphere. We explicitly solve the deterministic evolution, and
we provide a closed-form expression for the probability distribution on this
surface or curve. Then we relate the existence in general of such
deterministically evolving submanifolds to an accessibility question of control
theory, which can be answered with an explicit algebraic criterion on the SDE.
This allows us to show that, for a qubit, the above two sets of weak
measurements are essentially the only ones featuring deterministic surfaces or
curves.
