Entropy growth and degradation of entanglement due to phase decoherence in ion traps

We study how phase decoherence through intrinsic decoherence leads to growing entropy and a strong degradation of the maximum generated entanglement as a measure of information content of ionic state due to ion-laser interaction with a trapped ion. We calculate the partial entropy of the particle (atom or trapped ion) and field subsystems as well as the total entropy. The total entropy is shown to increase with time. Thus, the partial field or atomic entropy cannot be used as a direct measure of the particle–field entanglement. We find that, at least qualitatively, the difference between the total entropy and the sum of field and atom partial entropies can be used as an entanglement measure, when compared with 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 maximum generated entanglement on the decoherence and the chosen intrinsic decoherence parameter.