In this work we present an explicit geometric classification of the set Bell-diagonal in terms of the asymptotic behaviour of a system of two qubits evolving in the presence of a pair of independent thermal baths at zero temperature. We show that the set of initial Bell-diagonal states is separated in three bounded and simply-connected sets exhibiting: asymptotic entanglement dead, sudden entanglement dead and separability. The notion of entanglement dead time is related to the distance in the three dimensional geometric representation.
In this work we present an explicit geometric classification of the set Bell-diagonal in terms of the asymptotic behaviour of a system of two qubits evolving in the presence of a pair of independent thermal baths at zero temperature. We show that the set of initial Bell-diagonal states is separated in three bounded and simply-connected sets exhibiting: asymptotic entanglement dead, sudden entanglement dead and separability. The notion of entanglement dead time is related to the distance in the three dimensional geometric representation.
We study the entanglement evolution of the set of Bell diagonal states for a two-qubit system coupled to two independent vacuum noise sources. This set can be represented geometrically as the set of points inside a tetrahedron in a three-dimensional Euclidean space and contains the maximally entangled states for bipartite systems. We show that the set of entangled Bell diagonal states can be divided into two bounded subsets in this representation: states that evolve into separable states in a finite time and states that lose their entanglement asymptotically. Additionally, we find that the finite time in which the Bell diagonal states lose their entanglement depends only on the distances from their position in the three-dimensional representation to the boundaries of both, the set of separable states and the set of states that remains always entangled.
A given dynamics for a composite quantum system can exhibit several distinct properties for the asymptotic entanglement behavior, such as entanglement sudden death, asymptotic death of entanglement, sudden birth of entanglement, etc. A classification of the possible situations was given by Terra Cunha (2007 New J. Phys. 9 237) but for some classes there were no known examples. In this work, we give a better classification for the possible relaxing dynamics in light of the geometry of their set of asymptotic states and give explicit examples for all the classes. Although the classification is completely general, in the search for examples it is sufficient to use two qubits with dynamics given by differential equations in the Lindblad form (some of them are non-autonomous). We also investigate, in each case, the probabilities of finding each possible behavior for random initial states.
In the framework of the theory of open systems based on completely positive quantum dynamical semigroups, we present a description of continuous-variable entanglement for a system consisting of two non-interacting modes embedded in a thermal environment. By using the Peres–Simon necessary and sufficient criterion for the separability of two-mode Gaussian states, we describe the evolution of entanglement in terms of the covariance matrix for Gaussian input states. For all values of the temperature of the thermal reservoir, an initial separable Gaussian state remains separable for all times. In the case of an entangled initial Gaussian state, entanglement suppression (entanglement sudden death) takes place for non-zero temperatures of the environment. Only for zero temperature of the thermal bath, the initial entangled state remains entangled for finite times. We also show that, independent of its type, namely separable or entangled, the initial state evolves asymptotically to an equilibrium state that is always separable.
For pure and mixed two-qubit states we present an analysis based on symmetries of vectors and matrices associated to the density operator. These symmetries are revealed by doing reflection operations on the vectors and the matrices by Cartesian planes. Then we consider states whose $4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}4$ matrices belong to the D-7 manifold class and introduce a new set of parameters. This procedure allows us to establish the Peres-Horodecki separability criterion in terms of a squared distance having a Minkowski metric. Thereafter, defining a phase space in terms of those parameters, we identify two regions, a cone and elsewhere. Separable states are represented by points located within the cone or on its surface (the border), while elsewhere the points stand for the entangled states. For a system evolving in time, if its state is initially entangled, then depending on the values of its parameters and on the nature of the interactions with the environment, the trajectory in the phase space may cross the border at a finite time, going from the entangledlike to the separablelike region and vice-versa. As a particular feature, crossings in one direction stand for the phenomenon of sudden death of entanglement, while crossings in the opposite direction hint for the sudden birth of entanglement. Our method dispenses with operations on the density matrix; it is sufficient to write the expressions directly in terms of matrix entries. Some illustrative examples are worked out.
The dynamics of a two-qubit system is considered with the aim of a general categorization of the different ways in which entanglement can disappear in the course of the evolution, e.g., entanglement sudden death. The dynamics is described by the function ~n(t), where ~n is the 15-dimensional polarization vector. This representation is particularly useful because the components of ~n are direct physical observables, there is a meaningful notion of orthogonality, and the concurrence C can be computed for any point in the space. We analyze the topology of the space S of separable states (those having C = 0), and the often lower-dimensional linear dynamical subspace D that is characteristic of a specific physical model. This allows us to give a rigorous characterization of the four possible kinds of entanglement evolution. Which evolution is realized depends on the dimensionality of D and of D \cap S, the position of the asymptotic point of the evolution, and whether or not the evolution is distance-Markovian, a notion we define. We give several examples to illustrate the general principles, and to give a method to compute critical points. We construct a model that shows all four behaviors.
We demonstrate an exact mapping of a class of models of two interacting qubits in thermal reservoirs to two separate problems of spin–boson-type systems. Based on this mapping, exact numerical simulations of the qubits dynamics can be performed, beyond the weak system–bath coupling limit and the Markovian approximation. Given the time evolution of the system population and coherences, we study as an application the dynamics of entanglement between the pair of qubits immersed in boson thermal baths, showing a rich phenomenology, including an intermediate oscillatory behavior, the entanglement sudden birth, sudden death and revival. We find that the occurrence of entanglement sudden death in this model depends on the portion of the zero and double excitation states in the subsystem initial state. In the long-time limit, analytic expressions are presented at weak system–bath coupling, for a range of relevant qubit parameters.