Quantum entanglement of nanocantilevers

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to generate and analyze long-lived quantum entanglement between two nanocantilevers mediated by a Bose-Einstein condensate, highlighting potential for quantum information applications.

Contribution

It introduces a scheme for entangling nanocantilevers via atomic interactions and studies the dynamics of dark states under dissipation.

Findings

Entanglement oscillates over time without dissipation.

Dissipation leads to a steady mixture of dark states.

Thermal dephasing eventually destroys coherence.

Abstract

We propose a scheme to entangle two mechanical nanocantilevers through indirect interactions mediated by a gas of ultra cold atoms. We envisage a system of nanocantilevers magnetically coupled to a Bose-Einstein condensate of atoms and focus on studying the dark states of the system. These dark states are entangled states of the two nanocantilevers, with no coupling to the atomic condensate. In the absence of dissipation, the degree of entanglement is found to oscillate with time, while if dissipation is included, the system is found to relax to a statistical mixture of dark states which remains time independent until the inevitable thermal dephasing destroys the nanocantilever coherence. This opens up the possibility of achieving long-lived entangled nanocantilever states.