The maximum speed of dynamical evolution

We discuss the problem of counting the maximum number of distinct states that an isolated physical system can pass through in a given period of time—its maximum speed of dynamical evolution. Previous analyses have given bounds in terms of ∆E, the standard deviation of the energy of the system; here we give a strict bound that depends only on E−E0, the system’s average energy minus its ground state energy. We also discuss bounds on information processing rates implied by our bound on the speed of dynamical evolution. For example, adding one Joule of energy to a given computer can never increase its processing rate by more than about 3× 1033 operations per second.