Entanglement Generation via Hamiltonian Dynamics Having Limited Resources

Abstract

We investigate the fundamental limits of entanglement generation under bipartite Hamiltonian dynamics when only finite physical resources-specifically, bounded energy variance-are available. Using the relative entropy of entanglement, we derive a closed analytical expression for the instantaneous entanglement generation rate for arbitrary pure states and Hamiltonians expressed in the Schmidt basis. We find that constraints based solely on the mean energy of the Hamiltonian are insufficient to bound the entanglement generation rate, whereas imposing a variance constraint ensures a finite and well-defined maximum. We fully characterize the Hamiltonians that achieve this optimal rate, establishing a direct relation between their imaginary components in the Schmidt basis and the structure of the optimal initial states. For systems without ancillas, we obtain a closed-form expression for the maximal rate in terms of the surprisal variance of the Schmidt coefficients and identify the family of optimal states and Hamiltonians. We further extend our analysis to scenarios where Alice and Bob may employ local ancillary systems: using a matrix-analytic framework and a refined description of the Hamiltonians allowed by the physical constraints, we derive an explicit optimization formula and characterize the attainable enhancement in entanglement generation.