Classical correlation, quantum discord and entanglement for two-qubit system subject to heat bath

Classical correlation (CC), quantum discord (QD) and entanglement (QE) of two qubits in one-side and two-side decoherence models are investigated. The sudden change of quantum discord (DSC) as well as classical correlation and sudden death of entanglement (ESD) are found. It is proved that QE (QD) presents no sudden change (sudden death). We prove that, for nonzero occupation number of the reservoir, QE must suffer sudden death; For zero occupation number and X-form initial states, we obtain the states which are robust and the states which experience sudden death. It is verified that if DSC and ESD occur under one-side decoherence, then it must appear in the two-side decoherence, while the reverse does not hold. We obtain the boundaries of CC-QE plane and QD-QE plane, and give the state possessing maximal amount of CC (QD) for a given amount of QE.     

Entropy Growth and Degradation of Entanglement Due to Intrinsic Decoherence for an Initial Mixed State in the Multi-Quanta JC Model

In this paper, we present a study of the entropy growth and degradation of entanglement due to intrinsic decoherence for some different initial states in the multi-quanta Jaynes-Cummings model. We analytically solve the Milburn equation for such JC model. Using an established entanglement measure based on the negativity of the eigenvalues of the partially transposed density matrix we find a very strong sensitivity of the maximally generated entanglement to the amount of decoherence, the multiplicity and the form of the and the initial state. Comparison with different measures of entanglement are made.     

Sudden Death, Birth and Stable Entanglement in a Two-Qubit Heisenberg XY Spin Chain

Taking the decoherence effect due to population relaxation into account, we investigate the entanglement properties for two qubits in the Heisenberg XY interaction and subject to an external magnetic field. It is found that the phenomenon of entanglement sudden death (ESD) as well as sudden birth (ESB) appear during the evolution process for particular initial states. The influence of the external magnetic field and the spin environment on ESD and ESB are addressed in detail. It is shown that the concurrence, a measure of entanglement, can be controlled by tuning the parameters of the spin chain, such as the anisotropic parameter, external magnetic field, and the coupling strength with their environment. In particular, we find that a critical anisotropy constant exists, above which ESB vanishes while ESD appears. It is also notable that stable entanglement, which is independent of different initial states of the qubits, occurs even in the presence of decoherence.     

Decoherence Effect in An Anisotropic Two-Qubit Heisenberg XYZ Model with Inhomogeneous Magnetic Field

Taking the decoherence effect into account, the entanglement evolution of a two-qubit anisotropic Heisenberg XYZ chain in the presence of inhomogeneous magnetic field is investigated. The time evolution of concurrence is studied for the initial state cos θ｜01） ＋ sin θ｜10） at zero temperature. The influences of inhomogeneous magnetic field, anisotropic parameter and decoherence on entanglement dynamic are addressed in detail, and a concurrence formula of the steady state is found. It is shown that the entanglement sudden death （ESD） and entanglement sudden birth （ESB） appear with the decoherence effect, and the stable concurrence depends on the uniform magnetic field B, anisotropic parameter △ and environment coupling strength γ, which is independent of different initial states and nonuniform magnetic field b.     

Weak Measurement-Based Entanglement Protection of Two-Qubit X-States from Amplitude Damping Decoherence

Considering X-states the density matrixes of which look like the letter X, we propose a weak measurement-based entanglement protection protocol of two-qubit X-states under local amplitude damping channels using weak measurement and reversal operation. It is shown that, with increase of the decoherence parameter, the entanglement attenuates rapidly owing to the amplitude damping noise and even experiences entanglement sudden death (ESD). However, the entanglement under the weak measurement and reversal operation is always much stronger than the entanglement undergoing the amplitude damping decoherence. These results reflect that entanglement of two-qubit X-states from amplitude damping decoherence can be protected, and ESD can be circumvented by increasing the weak measurement strength.     

Linear response of tripartite entanglement to infinitesimal noise

Recent experimental progress in prolonging the coherence time of a quantum system prompts us to explore the behavior of quantum entanglement at the beginning of the decoherence process. The response of the entanglement under an infinitesimal noise can serve as a signature of the robustness of entangled states. A crucial problem of this topic in multipartite systems is to compute the degree of entanglement in a mixed state. We find a family of global noise in three-qubit systems, which is composed of four W states. Under its influence, the linear response of the tripartite entanglement of a symmetrical three-qubit pure state is studied. A lower bound of the linear response is found to depend completely on the initial tripartite and bipartite entanglement. This result shows that the decay of tripartite entanglement is hastened by the bipartite one.     

Controlling Sudden Birth and Sudden Death of Entanglement at Finite Temperature

The decoherence and the decay of quantum entanglement due to both population relaxation and thermal effects are investigated for the two qubits initially prepared in the extended Werner-like state by solving the Lindblad form of the master equation, where each qubit is interacting with an independent reservoir at finite temperature T. Entanglement sudden death (ESD) and entanglement sudden birth (ESB) are observed during the evolution process. We analyze in detail the effects of the mixedness, the degree of entanglement of the initial states and finite temperature on the time of entanglement sudden death and entanglement sudden birth. We also obtain an analytic formula for the steady state concurrence that shows its dependence on both the system parameters, the decoherence rate and finite temperature. These results arising from the combination of extended Werner-like initial state and independent thermal reservoirs suggest an approach to control the maximum possible concurrence even after the purity and finite temperature induce sudden birth, death and revival.     

Influence of Interaction Between Qubits on Entanglement Sudden Death and Birth

Dynamic evolution of entanglement is studied for coupling two-qubit system in non-Markov environment in terms of concurrence. We find that the degree of entanglement depends on the initial quantum state of the system and the interaction between the two-qubit system and the environment. When the interaction between the qubits and the environment is completely symmetric, especially, the environment has no effect on the entanglement, where the decoherence is entirely resulted from the interaction between qubits. By controlling the coupling way of the interaction, thus, one may avoid the entanglement sudden death (ESD).     

Decoherence and protection of entanglement of a system of three qubits driven by a classical Gaussian distributed fluctuating field

We consider a system of three uncoupled entangled qubits undergoing a decoherence process (DP) induced by a classical environmental noise portrayed by a Gaussian distributed fluctuating field with either Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) or Gaussian (G) autocorrelation function. The impacts of such a DP on the entanglement of the qubits are analyzed in detail when they are initialized either in the GHZ- or W-type states and interact with the fluctuating field in three different scenarios namely, common, independent and mixed environment(s). We found that: (i) the way the qubits interact with the noise as well as their initial state play an important role towards the protection of entanglement; (ii) there are optimal parameters which permit to delay or totally avoid the disentanglement of the qubits; (iii) irrespective of the qubit-noise coupling (QNC) scenario and the initial prepared state considered, the OU noise is more injurious to the survivorship of entanglement than the G one. Specifically, we show that, irrespective of the QNC scenario and the character of the noise considered, the DP disentangles the qubits more quickly when they are initialized in the W-type states than in the GHZ-type one. Furthermore, we show that when the initial state of the qubits is considered to be a W-type state, the disentanglement occurs more rapidly in the common environment (CE) scenario followed by the mixed environments (MEs) scenario than in the independent environments (IEs) one. However, the situation is completely reversed when a GHZ-type state is considered.     

Dynamics and protection of tripartite quantum correlations in a thermal bath

We study the dynamics and protection of tripartite quantum correlations in terms of genuinely tripartite concurrence, lower bound of concurrence and tripartite geometric quantum discord in a three-qubit system interacting with independent thermal bath. By comparing the dynamics of entanglement with that of quantum discord for initial GHZ state and W state, we find that W state is more robust than GHZ state, and quantum discord performs better than entanglement against the decoherence induced by the thermal bath. When the bath temperature is low, for the initial GHZ state, combining weak measurement and measurement reversal is necessary for a successful protection of quantum correlations. But for the initial W state, the protection depends solely upon the measurement reversal. In addition, the protection cannot usually be realized irrespective of the initial states as the bath temperature increases.     

Relativity of quantum states in entanglement swapping

The entanglement swapping protocol is analyzed in a relativistic setting, where shortly after the entanglement swapping is performed, a Bell test is performed. For an observer in the laboratory frame, a Bell violation is observed between the qubits with the swapped entanglement. In a moving frame, the order of the measurements is reversed, and a Bell violation is observed even though the particles are not entangled, directly or indirectly, or at any point in time. Although the measurement results are identical, the wavefunctions for the two frames are starkly different — one is entangled and the other is not. Furthermore, for boosts in a perpendicular direction, in the presence of decoherence, we show that the maximum Bell violation can occur across non-simultaneous points in time. This is a signature of entanglement that is spread across both space and time, showing both non-local and non-simultaneous aspects of entanglement.     

Entanglement dynamics of two-bipartite system under the influence of dissipative environments

An experimental scheme is suggested that permits a direct measure of entanglement in a two-qubit cavity system. It is realized in the cavity-QED technology utilizing atoms as flying qubits. With this scheme we generate two different measures of entanglement, namely logarithmic negativity and concurrence. The phenomenon of sudden death entanglement (ESD) in a bipartite system subjected to dissipative environment is examined. We show that the sudden death time of the entangled states depends on the initial preparation of the entangled state and the temperature of the reservoir.     

Entanglement entropy, decoherence, and quantum phase transitions of a dissipative two-level system

The concept of entanglement entropy appears in multiple contexts, from black hole physics to quantum information theory, where it measures the entanglement of quantum states. We investigate the entanglement entropy in a simple model, the spin-boson model, which describes a qubit (two-level system) interacting with a collection of harmonic oscillators that models the environment responsible for decoherence and dissipation. The entanglement entropy allows to make a precise unification between entanglement of the spin with its environment, decoherence, and quantum phase transitions. We derive exact analytical results which are confirmed by Numerical Renormalization Group arguments both for an ohmic and a subohmic bosonic bath. The entanglement entropy obeys universal scalings. We make comparisons with entanglement properties in the quantum Ising model and in the Dicke model. We also emphasize the possibility of measuring this entropy using charge qubits subject to electromagnetic noise; such measurements would provide an empirical proof of the existence of entanglement entropy.     

Stationary State Entanglement of Two Atoms Inside an Optical Cavity under Noise

In this paper, the entanglement properties of a system of two atoms inside an optical cavity in a stochastic interaction with field are studied by the Jaynes-Cummings Model. The phase telegraph noise is considered as a noise term and an exact solution to the model is obtained. The solution reveals the resulting decoherence effects of the noise on the entanglement properties of the system. It shows that under the noise the individual atoms do not entangle with the cavity field. However, a strong atom-atom entanglement is observed in a stationary state. It is seen that a relatively strong noise is cooperative in the construction of the steady state atom-atom entanglement.     

Effect of Cavity Decay on the Coherent Control of Atomic Tunneling

In this paper we study the influence of cavity decay on the atomic tunneling and entanglement dynamics in a cavity QED system. The system consists of an atom in a double-well potential and a cavity. The results show that the cavity decay affects significantly the tunneling and the entanglement dynamics. The tunneling behaves as a damping-oscillating function of time in this case, while the entanglement shared between the internal and external degree of freedom of the atom exhibits the so-called entanglement sudden death (ESD).     

Entanglement death and teleportation pre-emption in a dissipative system of two coupled qubits

We discuss the entanglement of two coupled qubits each of which is interacting with a multi-mode squeezed vacuum field reservoir and the possibility to use them in a teleportation protocol. The entanglement sudden death (ESD) and teleportation pre-emption (TPE) are discovered in this system. We consider the interplay between the coupling strength and the squeezing parameter, and find that they play competing roles in entanglement as well as in teleportation. We show in detail how the entanglement decay affects the teleportation. It is interesting to show that TPE precedes ESD in general, and for given measurement result and squeeze parameter all output states of teleportation for a long time arrive at a fixed asymptotic point in the Bloch sphere.     

Entanglement Dynamics and Bell Violations of Two Atoms in Tavis-Cummings Model with Phase Decoherence

Considering the dipole-dipole coupling intensity between two atoms and the field in the Fock state, the entanglement dynamics between two atoms that are initially entangled in the system of two two-level atoms coupled to a single mode cavity in the presence of phase decoherence has been investigated. The two-atom entanglement appears with periodicity without considering phase decoherence, however, the phase decoherence causes the decay of entanglement between two atoms, with the increasing of the phase decoherence coefficient, the entanglement will quickly become a constant value, which is affected by the two-atom initial state. Meanwhile the two-atom quantum state will forever stay in the maximal entangled state when the initial state is proper even in the presence of phase decoherence. On the other hand, the Bell violation and the entanglement do not satisfy the monotonous relation, a large Bell violation implies the presence of a large amount of entanglement under certain conditions, while a large Bell violation corresponds to a little amount of entanglement in certain situations. However, the violation of Bell-CHSH inequality can reach the maximal value if two atoms are in the maximal entangled state, or vice versa.     

Erratum to “Effect of the time-dependent coupling on a superconducting qubit-field system under decoherence: Entanglement and Wehrl entropy” [Ann. Physics 361 (2015) 247–258]

The dynamics of a superconducting (SC) qubit interacting with a field under decoherence with and without time-dependent coupling effect is analyzed. Quantum features like the collapse–revivals for the dynamics of population inversion, sudden birth and sudden death of entanglement, and statistical properties are investigated under the phase damping effect. Analytic results for certain parametric conditions are obtained. We analyze the influence of decoherence on the negativity and Wehrl entropy for different values of the physical parameters. We also explore an interesting relation between the SC-field entanglement and Wehrl entropy behavior during the time evolution. We show that the amount of SC-field entanglement can be enhanced as the field tends to be more classical. The studied model of SC-field system with the time-dependent coupling has high practical importance due to their experimental accessibility which may open new perspectives in different tasks of quantum formation processing.     

Effect of the time-dependent coupling on a superconducting qubit-field system under decoherence: Entanglement and Wehrl entropy

The dynamics of a superconducting (SC) qubit interacting with a field under decoherence with and without time-dependent coupling effect is analyzed. Quantum features like the collapse–revivals for the dynamics of population inversion, sudden birth and sudden death of entanglement, and statistical properties are investigated under the phase damping effect. Analytic results for certain parametric conditions are obtained. We analyze the influence of decoherence on the negativity and Wehrl entropy for different values of the physical parameters. We also explore an interesting relation between the SC-field entanglement and Wehrl entropy behavior during the time evolution. We show that the amount of SC-field entanglement can be enhanced as the field tends to be more classical. The studied model of SC-field system with the time-dependent coupling has high practical importance due to their experimental accessibility which may open new perspectives in different tasks of quantum formation processing.     

Effect of pure phase decoherence on entanglement teleportation

We study entanglement teleportation in the two‐qubit XX Heisenberg model with pure phase decoherence taken into account. For some initial entangled states, pure phase decoherence has no effect on the teleported entanglement, while for others pure phase decoherence has a pronounced effect. In addition, entanglement sudden death happens in the latter case.