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Physical Review A

Instantaneous angular velocity of quantum evolution

Jie‐Hui Huang, Liyun Hu, Fu-Yao Liu

Published Dec 30, 2020• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We introduce a metric in a geometric way for measuring the distance between two quantum states and derive the instantaneous angular velocity of a quantum state's dynamical evolution, which has two components: $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{E}_{t}/\ensuremath{\hbar}$ in the longitudinal direction and ${\overline{E}}_{t}/\ensuremath{\hbar}$ in the latitudinal direction. By applying the instantaneous angular velocities in the dynamical evolution governed by a time-independent Hamiltonian, the fastest way for a pure state to evolve to a target state is discussed. As a consequence, we generalize the Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin bounds without using the Heisenberg uncertainty relation and point out the conditions for saturating the two bounds. The fastest dynamical evolution of a quantum system with a particular time-dependent Hamiltonian is also briefly discussed. The quantum features in the dynamical evolution are revealed through phase change and lifetime of the initial state.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.102.062221

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Recently, Jones and Kok [Jones and Kok, Phys. Rev. A 82, 022107 (2010)] presented alternative geometric derivations of the Mandelstam-Tamm [Mandelstam and Tamm, J. Phys. (USSR) 9, 249 (1945)] and Margolus-Levitin [Margolus and Levitin, Phys. D 120, 188 (1998)] inequalities for the quantum speed of dynamical evolution. The Margolus-Levitin inequality followed from an upper bound on the rate of change of the statistical distance between two arbitrary pure quantum states. We show that the derivation of this bound is incorrect. Subsequently, we provide two upper bounds on the rate of change of the statistical distance, expressed in terms of the standard deviation of the generator $K$ and its expectation value above the ground state. The bounds lead to the Mandelstam-Tamm inequality and a quantum speed limit which is only slightly weaker than the Margolus-Levitin inequality.

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Physical Review Letters•Oct 30, 2019•65 citations
We introduce a metric in a geometric way for measuring the distance between two quantum states and derive the instantaneous angular velocity of a quantum state's dynamical evolution, which has two components: \ensuremathΔEt/\ensuremathℏ\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{E}_{t}/\ensuremath{\hbar}\ensuremathΔEt​/\ensuremathℏ in the longitudinal direction and E‾t/\ensuremathℏ{\overline{E}}_{t}/\ensuremath{\hbar}Et​/\ensuremathℏ in the latitudinal direction. By applying the instantaneous angular velocities in the dynamical evolution governed by a time-independent Hamiltonian, the fastest way for a pure state to evolve to a target state is discussed. As a consequence, we generalize the Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin bounds without using the Heisenberg uncertainty relation and point out the conditions for saturating the two bounds. The fastest dynamical evolution of a quantum system with a particular time-dependent Hamiltonian is also briefly discussed. The quantum features in the dynamical evolution are revealed through phase change and lifetime of the initial state.
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 Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin inequalities play an important role in the study of quantum-mechanical processes in nature since they provide general limits on the speed of dynamical evolution. However, to date there has been only one derivation of the Margolus-Levitin inequality. In this paper, alternative geometric derivations for both inequalities are obtained from the statistical distance between quantum states. The inequalities are shown to hold for unitary evolution of pure and mixed states, and a counterexample to the inequalities is given for evolution described by completely positive trace-preserving maps. The counterexample shows that there is no quantum speed limit for nonunitary evolution.
The speed of evolution between perfectly distinguishable states is thoroughly analyzed in a closed three-level (qutrit) quantum system. Considering an evolution under an arbitrary time-independent Hamiltonian, we fully characterize the relevant parameters according to whether the corresponding quantum speed limit is given by the Mandelstam-Tamm, the Margolus-Levitin, or the Ness-Alberti-Sagi (dual) bound, thereby elucidating their hierarchy and relative importance. We revisit the necessary and sufficient conditions that guarantee the evolution of the initial state towards an orthogonal one in a finite time, and pay special attention to the full characterization of the speed of evolution, offering a speed map in parameter space that highlights regions associated with faster or slower dynamics. The general analysis is applied to concrete physical settings, particularly a pair of bosons governed by an extended Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian, and a single particle in a triple-well potential. Our findings provide a framework to explore how the energetic resources and the initial configurations shape the pace of the dynamics in higher-dimensional systems.
We theoretically study the dynamical speedup of a quantum system in a nonequilibrium environment. Based on the trace distance, we derive the generalized Margolus-Levitin and Mandelstam-Tamm types of bounds on the quantum speed limit time of a quantum system evolving from an arbitrary initial state. We demonstrate that the mechanism for the speedup of dynamical evolution is closely associated with both the energy of the system and exchange of information between the system and its environment. It is shown that the nonequilibrium feature of the environment can speed up the quantum evolution in both Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics regions. We emphasize that the non-Markovian effect of the system dynamics is neither necessary nor sufficient to speed up the quantum evolution in a nonequilibrium environment.
Recently, Jones and Kok [Jones and Kok, Phys. Rev. A 82, 022107 (2010)] presented alternative geometric derivations of the Mandelstam-Tamm [Mandelstam and Tamm, J. Phys. (USSR) 9, 249 (1945)] and Margolus-Levitin [Margolus and Levitin, Phys. D 120, 188 (1998)] inequalities for the quantum speed of dynamical evolution. The Margolus-Levitin inequality followed from an upper bound on the rate of change of the statistical distance between two arbitrary pure quantum states. We show that the derivation of this bound is incorrect. Subsequently, we provide two upper bounds on the rate of change of the statistical distance, expressed in terms of the standard deviation of the generator KKK and its expectation value above the ground state. The bounds lead to the Mandelstam-Tamm inequality and a quantum speed limit which is only slightly weaker than the Margolus-Levitin inequality.
We derive a distinct bound of the quantum speed limit for a non-Hermitian quantum system by employing the gauge invariant and geometric natures of quantum mechanics. The bound is of geometric properties since it relates to the geometric phase of the quantum system, and it is tighter than the Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin bounds in some cases. Also, by making the geodesic assumption, the analog of the Margolus-Levitin bound is derived for the time-dependent (non-)Hermitian quantum system. These two bounds reflect the impacts of the transmission modes of the state vectors on the evolution path in the manifold.