Summary

The internal mechanisms MarkLogic Server uses to implement security are query constraints. Lexicon search performance may be impacted by security query contraints.  If performed with admin credentials, Lexicon searches will not be impacted by the security query constraints.  

Detail

Query time grows proportionately with the number of matches from a given search across a set of documents (not the actual number of documents in your database). The presence of security constraints will contribute a significantly larger number of matches than if the same lexicon search was performed with admin credentials.  In order to minimize the number of matches (and therefore query time) for a given lexicon search, you'll want to amp your lexicon searches to an admin user.