Limitations to the speed of evolution of quantum systems, typically referred to as quantum speed limits (QSLs), have important consequences for quantum control problems. However, in its standard formulation, is not straightforward to obtain meaningful QSL bounds for time-dependent Hamiltonians with unknown control parameters. In this paper we present a short introductory overview of quantum speed limit for unitary dynamics and its connection to quantum control. We then analyze potential methods for obtaining new bounds on control times inspired by the QSL. We finally extend the work in [Poggi, Lombardo and WisniackiEPL104 40005 (2013)] by studying the properties and limitations of these new bounds in the context of a driven two-level quantum system.
Limitations to the speed of evolution of quantum systems, typically referred to as quantum speed limits (QSLs), have important consequences for quantum control problems. However, in its standard formulation, is not straightforward to obtain meaningful QSL bounds for time-dependent Hamiltonians with unknown control parameters. In this paper we present a short introductory overview of quantum speed limit for unitary dynamics and its connection to quantum control. We then analyze potential methods for obtaining new bounds on control times inspired by the QSL. We finally extend the work in [Poggi, Lombardo and WisniackiEPL104 40005 (2013)] by studying the properties and limitations of these new bounds in the context of a driven two-level quantum system.
The notion of a quantum speed limit (QSL) refers to the fundamental fact that two quantum states become completely distinguishable upon dynamical evolution only after a finite amount of time, called the QSL time. A different but related concept is that of minimum control time (MCT), which is the minimum evolution time needed for a state to be driven (by suitable, generally time-dependent, control fields) to a given target state. While the QSL can give information about the MCT, it usually imposes little restrictions on it and is thus impractical for control purposes. In this work, we revisit this issue by first presenting a theory of geometrical QSL for unitary transformations, rather than for states, and discuss its implications and limitations. Then, we propose a framework for bounding the MCT for realizing unitary transformations that goes beyond the QSL results and gives much more meaningful information to understand the controlled dynamics of the system at short times.
The quantum speed limit (QSL) is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics, providing a lower bound on the evolution time. The attainability of the QSL, which greatly depends on the understanding of the QSL, is a long-standing open problem, especially for high-dimensional systems. In this paper, we solve this problem by establishing a QSL suitable and attainable for both open and closed quantum systems based on a new proposed state distance. It is shown that, given any initial state in a certain finite dimension, unitary and nonunitary dynamics can always be found to attain our QSL bound in the corresponding dimension, and for any given Hamiltonian for a unitary evolution a pair of states always exists, attaining the bound. As applications, we demonstrate the QSL time attained by various physical settings. This paper will shed light on the QSL problems.
Quantum speed limits (QSLs) impose fundamental constraints on the evolution speed of quantum systems. For systems with time-independent Hamiltonians, the QSLs are intricately linked to the energy spectra of the initial state, which signify the generalization of the time-energy uncertainty relation. Based on arbitrary-order norms of the Hamiltonian, dual energies from inverted spectra, and the standard deviation of energy, different types of QSLs have been proposed, revealing three dynamical parameter regimes of quantum state evolution. Despite the theoretical advancements, a comprehensive experimental examination remains elusive. In this research, by introducing unified bounds suitable for all evolution times, we present the experimental verification to the QSLs in various scenarios with a superconducting circuit. We explore the dynamical evolution with regard to each parameter regime as well as the critical point by carefully engineering the initial-state population of the superconducting resonator. We test our unified bounds over finite-level states and infinite-level classical and nonclassical Gaussian states, which validates the criteria for the QSLs. Our work substantially deepens our comprehension of unitary quantum evolution.
As one of the fundamental questions, quantum speed limit (QSL) is of vital role in the community of quantum physics, which sets the ultimate, maximal speed with which a quantum system can evolve. QSL originated from the understanding of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation. In 1945, Mandelstam and Tamm found the time Δt in the celebrated relation ΔEΔt≥ℏ could be thought as the minimum time that a quantum system needs to evolve from an initial state to the orthogonal state for unitary evolution. QSL sets the lower bound of the evolution. They established the relationship between the minimum evolution time ( τQSL ) and the energy uncertainty of the system (ΔE), namely τQSL=πℏ/(2ΔE) , the Mandelstam-Tamm (MT) bound. Later, Margolus and Levitin derived another different bound for a closed system which connected the τQSL with the average energy of the system ( 〈E〉 ), i.e., τQSL=πℏ/(2〈E〉) , the Margolus-Levitin (ML) bound. Combining the MT and ML bounds together, we can have a unified bound for a unitary system and orthogonal states. In the case of open system dynamics, because there is energy and/or coherence exchange between the system and the environment, the orthogonal final state of the initial state can hardly be reached any longer. An investigation of the QSL on non-unitary quantum evolution needs to be considered. The generalized QSLs are established by employing the distance between the distinguishable states. Different metrics define different distances, leading to different QSL bounds. We show a few typical generalized QSL bounds based on different metrics. And the unified QSL bound for non-unitary evolution is obtained by combining the generalized MT and ML bounds under the same metric. The generations and developments of QSL have successfully generalized the MT bounds. Even the ML bounds have been attempted to generalize, the current studies of ML bound are thought as the significantly harder task, and keep as the open questions. The influences of external environment and quantum system dynamics which include the role of entanglement in QSL for open dynamics and many-body systems, the relation between the maximum interaction speed and QSL in quantum spin systems, the non-Markovianity effect of the environment on accelerating the speed of evolution have been investigated. Furthermore, by employing the gauge invariant distance in the Riemannian metric, we establish a distinct QSL bound, which relates the quantum speed limit time to the geometry phase, and presents the geometric and gauge invariant properties of it. The bound shows the impacts of the transmission modes of the state vectors on the evolution path in the manifold. Different from the established MT and ML bounds, our bound establishes the relation between the QSL and the Pancharatnam connection 1-form, and our results show that the QSL can be controlled via manipulating the generalized Pahcharatnam connection. Also, our results of QSL are holonomy via the generalized Pahcharatnam connection, which show us a possible technique to speed up the holonomic quantum computation. The bound is also interesting to the metrology and non-equilibrium thermodynamics, etc. QSL has also been studied in the quantum representation of Wigner function. In the future research of quantum speed limit, there are many issues that need to be considered, such as the generalized ML bound, the unified QSL bound under different metrics, the application of maximum rate of quantum information derived from the QSL, and the relation between the quantum speed limit and the quantum heat engine, etc.
The speed of quantum evolution is limited under finite energy resources. While most quantum speed limits (QSLs) are formulated in terms of quantum states, they can be extended to the evolution operator itself, and thus impose fundamental limits on how quickly logical gate operations can be implemented on a quantum computer. Here, we derive a general, tight QSL that holds for any unitary evolution under the constraint that the spectral width of the Hamiltonian is bounded. We apply this result to obtain QSLs for several standard quantum gates, including Hadamard, CNOT, and Toffoli gates, finding that the QSL can vary significantly across different gates, including ones with the same entangling power. These findings can be understood geometrically using the Space Curve Quantum Control formalism, which maps unitary evolution to space curves in Euclidean space. In this formalism, the problem of finding QSLs is recast as the problem of finding minimal-length curves obeying a curvature bound. We find that time-optimal gates map to helices of varying dimensions, and that QSLs can be understood from the perspective of a bottleneck principle in which the operator that evolves the slowest governs the minimal gate time.
Quantum mechanics dictates bounds for the minimal evolution time between predetermined initial and final states. Several of these quantum-speed-limit (QSL) bounds were derived for nonunitary dynamics using different approaches. Here, we perform a systematic analysis of the most common QSL bounds in the damped Jaynes-Cummings model, covering the Markovian and non-Markovian regimes. We show that only one of the analyzed bounds cleaves to the essence of the QSL theory outlined in the pioneer works of Mandelstam and Tamm and of Margolus and Levitin in the context of unitary evolutions. We also show that all QSL bounds analyzed reflect the fact that in our model non-Markovian effects speed up quantum evolution. However, it is not possible to infer Markovian or non-Markovian behavior of the dynamics by analyzing only the QSL bounds.