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npj Quantum Information

Experimental investigation of the trade-off between quantum speed and energy cost

Yang Dong, Wang Jiang, Zhi-Wei Liu, Yong Liu, Shaochun Zhang, Diego Paiva Pires, Diogo O. Soares-Pinto, Xiangdong Chen, Guang-Can Guo, Fang‐Wen Sun

Published Nov 28, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The implementation of information processing on a quantum device is a fundamental challenge for many technologies. As a matter of fact, the faster one wants to implement a quantum operation, the higher is the thermodynamic cost of realizing the quantum process. Here, we theoretically propose and experimentally verify a trade-off between quantum speed and energy cost using Schatten 2-norm. Our findings demonstrate that this trade-off remains tight for any instant of time, whether dealing with initial eigenstates or initial thermal equilibrium states, as illustrated by the Landau-Zehner model. This observation underscores the significance of coherence of the evolved states. By extending our method to open system, we find that quantum speed can be significantly affected by environmental decoherence effect. These results illuminate the fundamental limits of quantum state dynamics and hold promise for potential applications in quantum sensing and quantum computing.

DOI
10.1038/s41534-025-01149-z

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The implementation of information processing on a quantum device is a fundamental challenge for many technologies. As a matter of fact, the faster one wants to implement a quantum operation, the higher is the thermodynamic cost of realizing the quantum process. Here, we theoretically propose and experimentally verify a trade-off between quantum speed and energy cost using Schatten 2-norm. Our findings demonstrate that this trade-off remains tight for any instant of time, whether dealing with initial eigenstates or initial thermal equilibrium states, as illustrated by the Landau-Zehner model. This observation underscores the significance of coherence of the evolved states. By extending our method to open system, we find that quantum speed can be significantly affected by environmental decoherence effect. These results illuminate the fundamental limits of quantum state dynamics and hold promise for potential applications in quantum sensing and quantum computing.
The approach of shortcuts to adiabaticity enables the effective execution of adiabatic dynamics in quantum information processing with enhanced speed. Owing to the inherent trade-off between dynamical speed and the cost associated with the transitionless driving field, executing arbitrarily fast operations becomes impractical. To understand the accurate interplay between speed and energetic cost in this process, we propose theoretically and verify experimentally a new trade-off, which is characterized by a tightly optimized bound within s-parametrized phase spaces. Our experiment is carried out in a single ultracold ^{40}Ca^{+} ion trapped in a harmonic potential. By exactly operating the quantum states of the ion, we execute the Landau-Zener model as an example, where the quantum speed limit as well as the cost are governed by the spectral gap. We witness that our proposed trade-off is indeed tight in scenarios involving both initially eigenstates and initially thermal equilibrium states. Our work helps understanding the fundamental constraints in shortcuts to adiabaticity and illuminates the potential of underutilized phase spaces that have been traditionally overlooked.
Achieving effectively adiabatic dynamics is a ubiquitous goal in almost all areas of quantum physics. Here, we study the speed with which a quantum system can be driven when employing transitionless quantum driving. As a main result, we establish a rigorous link between this speed, the quantum speed limit, and the (energetic) cost of implementing such a shortcut to adiabaticity. Interestingly, this link elucidates a trade-off between speed and cost, namely, that instantaneous manipulation is impossible as it requires an infinite cost. These findings are illustrated for two experimentally relevant systems-the parametric oscillator and the Landau-Zener model-which reveal that the spectral gap governs the quantum speed limit as well as the cost for realizing the shortcut.
We establish a comprehensive theoretical framework for coherent quantum speed limits (QSLs), deriving fundamental bounds on the rate of quantum evolution that explicitly isolate the contribution of quantum coherence. By applying Hölder's inequality for matrix norms to the Liouville-von Neumann equation, we construct two infinite families of QSLs for general unitary dynamics. These bounds are characterized by coherence measures based on Schatten ppp-norms and Hellinger distance, respectively, defined with respect to the instantaneous energy eigenbasis. Unlike traditional Mandelstam-Tamm bounds, our approach disentangles the quantum state's coherence structure from the Hamiltonian's energy scale. Using the Landau-Zener model accelerated by shortcuts to adiabaticity, we demonstrate that coherence functions as a critical kinematic resource: achieving faster evolution entails maintaining a state with high coherence relative to the instantaneous basis. Our results provide a resource-theoretic perspective on time-energy uncertainty, offering insights into the fundamental limits of quantum control and information processing.
Quantifying the energetic cost of implementing quantum operations is essential for assessing the efficiency and scalability of quantum sensing and information-processing technologies. Here, we introduce a framework for analysing the interplay between complexity and energy cost of quantum processes. In particular, we apply our framework to a sequential quantum phase estimation protocol, where a phase of physical significance is encoded in a quantum channel. The channel is applied to a probe state repeatedly until the probe is measured and the outcome leads to an estimate on the phase. We establish a trade-off relation between the total energy cost of the protocol and the number of times the channel is applied (complexity), while reaching a desired estimation precision. A sweet spot is located where the two quantities are co-optimised. The principles of our analysis can be adapted to benchmark the energetic requirements in other quantum protocols and devices.
Coherence is the most fundamental quantum resource in quantum information processing. How fast a physical system gets coherence or decoherence is a critical ingredient. We present an attainable quantum speed limit based on the variation of quantum coherence subject to a dynamical process. It indicates that for a two-dimensional quantum state, one can always find corresponding dynamics driving it to evolve along the geodesic to another state with certain coherence variation. As applications, we study the coherence quantum speed limits of the dephasing and dissipative dynamics. It is shown that the dephasing dynamics can saturate our coherence quantum speed limit, and the decoherence of the state with identical populations will be faster than others. However, the dissipative dynamics have the opposite behavior. In addition, we illustrate a stronger tightness of our bound for the mentioned dynamics by comparison.
Quantum reservoir computing provides a framework for processing complex temporal data, yet its fundamental computational and energetic limits remain unresolved. Here, we establish a non-equilibrium thermodynamic framework that links the macroscopic predictive performance of driven open quantum systems to their microscopic energetic costs. By mapping Holevo capacities onto the Bogoliubov-Kubo-Mori geometric manifold, we analytically prove that the computational peak within the quantum critical region originates from a spectral resonance: the closing of the intrinsic energy gap forces the reservoir's internal transition frequencies to align with the chaotic drive. To evaluate the associated thermodynamic costs, we introduce quantum informational dissipation to quantify the non-predictive historical data retained by the reservoir. This allows us to derive a generalized Landauer bound for continuous temporal processing, which reveals a fundamental thermodynamic trade-off: the critical resonance that maximizes predictive capacity simultaneously maximizes informational dissipation and the irreversible work required for environmental erasure. Furthermore, coherence decomposition demonstrates that quantum coherences amplify predictive capacity without demanding additional mechanical work. These findings establish the fundamental energetic limits of quantum learning devices, providing theoretical principles for designing energy-efficient quantum neuromorphic hardware.