# Quantum speed limits: from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to optimal quantum control

## TL;DR

This paper reviews the fundamental quantum speed limits derived from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, discussing key bounds like Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin, and explores their applications across various quantum technologies.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of quantum speed limits, categorizing approaches into minimal time and geometric methods, and summarizes recent developments and applications in the field.

## Key findings

- Summarizes key quantum speed limit bounds like Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin.
- Classifies approaches into minimal time and geometric frameworks.
- Highlights recent applications in quantum information, computing, and thermodynamics.

## Abstract

One of the most widely known building blocks of modern physics is Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle. Among the different statements of this fundamental property of the full quantum mechanical nature of physical reality, the uncertainty relation for energy and time has a special place. Its interpretation and its consequences have inspired continued research efforts for almost a century. In its modern formulation, the uncertainty relation is understood as setting a fundamental bound on how fast any quantum system can evolve. In this Topical Review we describe important milestones, such as the Mandelstam-Tamm and the Margolus-Levitin bounds on the quantum speed limit, and summarise recent applications in a variety of current research fields -- including quantum information theory, quantum computing, and quantum thermodynamics amongst several others. To bring order and to provide an access point into the many different notions and concepts, we have grouped the various approaches into the minimal time approach and the geometric approach, where the former relies on quantum control theory, and the latter arises from measuring the distinguishability of quantum states. Due to the volume of the literature, this Topical Review can only present a snapshot of the current state-of-the-art and can never be fully comprehensive. Therefore, we highlight but a few works hoping that our selection can serve as a representative starting point for the interested reader.