  The coherence time of an electron spin decohered by the nuclear spin
environment in a quantum dot can be substantially increased by subjecting the
electron to suitable dynamical decoupling sequences. We analyze the performance
of high-level decoupling protocols by using a combination of analytical and
exact numerical methods, and by paying special attention to the regimes of
large inter-pulse delays and long-time dynamics, which are outside the reach of
standard average Hamiltonian theory descriptions. We demonstrate that dynamical
decoupling can remain efficient far beyond its formal domain of applicability,
and find that a protocol exploiting concatenated design provides best
performance for this system in the relevant parameter range. In situations
where the initial electron state is known, protocols able to completely freeze
decoherence at long times are constructed and characterized. The impact of
system and control non-idealities is also assessed, including the effect of
intra-bath dipolar interaction, magnetic field bias and bath polarization, as
well as systematic pulse imperfections. While small bias field and small bath
polarization degrade the decoupling fidelity, enhanced performance and temporal
modulation result from strong applied fields and high polarizations. Overall,
we find that if the relative errors of the control parameters do not exceed 5%,
decoupling protocols can still prolong the coherence time by up to two orders
of magnitude.
