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.

• Received 1 November 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.95.052104