Harvesting Entanglement from the Black Hole Vacuum

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that black holes hinder entanglement harvesting from quantum fields, with entanglement rapidly vanishing near the horizon due to black hole radiation and gravitational redshift effects.

Contribution

First implementation of entanglement harvesting near a black hole, showing how horizons affect quantum entanglement extraction from fields.

Findings

Entanglement harvesting is inhibited near the black hole horizon.

Entanglement rapidly decreases as detectors approach the horizon.

Black hole radiation and redshift are key factors in entanglement suppression.

Abstract

We implement the entanglement harvesting protocol, in which two Unruh-DeWitt detectors become entangled through local interactions with a quantum field, for the first time in the vicinity of a black hole. Our study, focusing on the BTZ black hole, reveals that black holes inhibit entanglement harvesting. The entanglement harvested rapidly falls to zero when two detectors with fixed proper separation approach the horizon. This effect is a combination of black hole radiation and gravitational red shift, both generic properties of horizons, suggesting it is a general result for black holes.