Operational impact of quantum resources in chemical dynamics

Quantum coherence and other non-classical features are widely discussed in chemical dynamics, yet it remains difficult to quantify when such resources are operationally relevant for a given process and observable. While quantum resource theories provide a comprehensive framework for comparing free and resourceful settings, existing approaches typically rely on resource monotones or on performance bounds under free operations and do not directly quantify the maximal influence a chosen resource can exert on a fixed chemical dynamics. Here, we introduce task specific, process level quantifiers that upper bound the largest change a quantum resource can induce in a target figure of merit. Central is a resource impact functional CM(Λ), defined by comparing a state with its paired resource-free counterpart under the same quantum channel Λ, which admits an operational interpretation in binary hypothesis testing. We derive variation and time bounds that constrain how rapidly a resource can modify a target signal, providing resource-aware analogues of quantum speed limits. Moreover, we show that open system dynamics can be decomposed into free and resourceful components such that only the resourceful component contributes to CM(Λ), thereby isolating the parts of a generator responsible for resource-induced changes in the observable. We illustrate the framework exemplarily for energy transfer in a donor-acceptor dimer in two analytically solvable regimes. Our results provide a general toolbox for diagnosing and benchmarking quantum resource effects in molecular processes.