Attainable quantum speed limit for N-dimensional quantum systems

Abstract

Quantum speed limit (QSL) is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics and provides a lower bound on the evolution time. The attainability of QSL, greatly depending on the understanding of 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 dimension, our QSL bound can always be saturated by unitary and non-unitary dynamics, and for any given Hamiltonian for a unitary evolution, a pair of states always exists, saturating the bound. As applications, we demonstrate the QSL time attained by various physical settings. This paper will shed new light on the QSL problems.