Quantum speed limit for non-Markovian dynamics

Sebastian Deffner, Eric Lutz

Published 2013-02-20, updated 2013-02-28Version 2

We derive a Margolus-Levitin type bound on the minimal evolution time of an arbitrarily driven open quantum system. We express this quantum speed limit time in terms of the operator norm of the nonunitary generator of the dynamics. We apply these results to the damped Jaynes-Cummings model and demonstrate that the corresponding bound is tight. We further show that non-Markovian effects can speed up quantum evolution and therefore lead to a smaller quantum speed limit time.