Sudden death of entanglement with Hamiltonian ensemble assisted by auxiliary qubits

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Hamiltonian-ensemble method with auxiliary qubits to simulate qubit relaxation, revealing that longitudinal relaxation causes entanglement sudden death and transverse relaxation accelerates this process.

Contribution

It proposes a novel simulation approach for qubit relaxation using Hamiltonian ensembles and auxiliary qubits, elucidating their effects on entanglement dynamics.

Findings

Longitudinal relaxation causes entanglement sudden death.

Transverse relaxation accelerates entanglement disentanglement.

Ensemble average captures finite-temperature relaxation effects.

Abstract

In this paper, we theoretically propose a method to simulate the longitudinal relaxation of a single qubit by coupling it to an auxiliary qubit. In order to mimic the finite-temperature relaxation, we utilize the Hamiltonian-ensemble approach [Kropf, Gneiting, and Buchleitner, Phys. Rev. X 6, 031023 (2016)] and in each realization the auxiliary qubit possesses a random level spacing. The longitudinal relaxation arises as a consequence of the ensemble average and the interaction between the working qubit and the auxiliary qubit. Furthermore, we apply this approach to investigate the influence of the longitudinal relaxation and the transverse relaxation on the entanglement dynamics of two qubits. It is discovered that the sudden death of the entanglement will occur as long as the longitudinal relaxation is present. The transverse relaxation assists the longitudinal relaxation and thus accelerates the finite-time disentanglement.