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arXiv:quant-ph/0412132 · Physical Review A

Brownian entanglement

ARMEN E. ALLAHVERDYAN, Andrei Yu. Khrennikov, Theo M. Nieuwenhuizen

Published Sep 6, 2005• 41 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

For two classical Brownian particles an analog of continuous-variable quantum entanglement is presented: The common probability distribution of the two coordinates and the corresponding coarse-grained velocities cannot always be prepared via mixing of any factorized distributions referring to the two particles separately. This is possible for particles which have interacted in the past, but do not interact at present. Three factors are crucial for the effect: (1) separation of time scales of coordinate and momentum which motivates the definition of coarse-grained velocities; (2) the resulting uncertainty relations between the coordinate of the Brownian particle and the change of its coarse-grained velocity; (3) the fact that the coarse-grained velocity, though pertaining to a single Brownian particle, is defined on a common context of two particles. The Brownian entanglement is a consequence of a coarse-grained description and disappears for a finer resolution of the Brownian motion. Analogies with the quantum situation are discussed, as well as possibilities of experimental realization of the effect in examples of macroscopic Brownian motion.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.72.032102

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For two classical Brownian particles an analog of continuous-variable quantum entanglement is presented: The common probability distribution of the two coordinates and the corresponding coarse-grained velocities cannot always be prepared via mixing of any factorized distributions referring to the two particles separately. This is possible for particles which have interacted in the past, but do not interact at present. Three factors are crucial for the effect: (1) separation of time scales of coordinate and momentum which motivates the definition of coarse-grained velocities; (2) the resulting uncertainty relations between the coordinate of the Brownian particle and the change of its coarse-grained velocity; (3) the fact that the coarse-grained velocity, though pertaining to a single Brownian particle, is defined on a common context of two particles. The Brownian entanglement is a consequence of a coarse-grained description and disappears for a finer resolution of the Brownian motion. Analogies with the quantum situation are discussed, as well as possibilities of experimental realization of the effect in examples of macroscopic Brownian motion.
We show that for two classical Brownian particles there exists an analog ofcontinuous-variable quantum entanglement: The common probability distributionof the two coordinates and the corresponding coarse-grained velocitiescannot be prepared via mixing of any factorized distributions referring tothe two particles in separate. This is possible for particles which interactedin the past, but do not interact in the present. Three factors are crucial forthe effect: (1) separation of time-scales of coordinate and momentum whichmotivates the definition of coarse-grained velocities; (2) the resulting uncertaintyrelations between the coordinate of the Brownian particle and thechange of its coarse-grained velocity; (3) the fact that the coarse-grained velocity,though pertaining to a single Brownian particle, is defined on a commoncontext of two particles. The Brownian entanglement is a consequenceof a coarse-grained description and disappears for a finer resolution of theBrownian motion. We discuss possibilities of its experimental realizations inexamples of macroscopic Brownian motion.
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Uncertainty relations involving incompatible observables are one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics. Aside from their fundamental significance, they play an important role in practical applications, such as detection of quantum correlations and security requirements in quantum cryptography. In continuous variable systems, the spectra of the relevant observables form a continuum and this necessitates the coarse graining of measurements. However, these coarse-grained observables do not necessarily obey the same uncertainty relations as the original ones, a fact that can lead to false results when considering applications. That is, one cannot naively replace the original observables in the uncertainty relation for the coarse-grained observables and expect consistent results. As such, several uncertainty relations that are specifically designed for coarse-grained observables have been developed. In recognition of the 90th anniversary of the seminal Heisenberg uncertainty relation, celebrated last year, and all the subsequent work since then, here we give a review of the state of the art of coarse-grained uncertainty relations in continuous variable quantum systems, as well as their applications to fundamental quantum physics and quantum information tasks. Our review is meant to be balanced in its content, since both theoretical considerations and experimental perspectives are put on an equal footing.
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The quantum analog of the joint probability distributions describing a classical stochastic process is introduced. A prescription is given for constructing the quantum distribution associated with a sequence of measurements. For the case of quantum Brownian motion this prescription is illustrated with a number of explicit examples. In particular, it is shown how the prescription can be extended in the form of a general formula for the Wigner function of a Brownian particle entangled with a heat bath.