2008/04/30 by J. León, Juan León, Carlos Sabín · 1 citation
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Atom (system on chip) #Atomic physics #Cone (formal languages) #Dipole #Electric field #Electromagnetic field #Field (mathematics) #Light cone #Mathematics #Photon #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum entanglement #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics #State (computer science) #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.79.012304
published as Phys. Rev. A 79, 012304 (2009) · v2: Minor changes, references added. v3: full revision, appendix added. v4: Minor changes. Accepted in Phys. Rev. A
arxiv created 2008/12/11 · openalex publication_date 2009/01/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We analyze whether a pair of neutral two level atoms can become entangled in a finite time while they remain causally disconnected. The interaction with the electromagnetic field is treated perturbatively in the electric dipole approximation. We start from an initial vacuum state and obtain the final atomic correlations for the cases where n=0, 1, or 2 photons are produced in a time t, and also when the final field state is unknown. Our results show that correlations are sizable inside and outside the mutual light cone for n=1 and 2, and also that quantum correlations become classical by tracing over the field state. For n=0 we obtain entanglement generation by photon propagation between the atoms, the correlations come from the indistinguishability of the source for n=1, and may give rise to entanglement swapping for n=2.