Entanglement Dynamics of Two Qubits in a Common Bath

Jian Ma, Zhe Sun, Xiaoguang Wang, Franco Nori

Published 2012-02-03, updated 2012-06-27Version 2

We derive a set of hierarchical equations for qubits interacting with a Lorentz-broadened cavity mode at zero temperature, without using the rotating-wave, Born, and Markovian approximations. We use this exact method to reexamine the entanglement dynamics of two qubits interacting with a common bath, which was previously solved only under the rotating-wave and single-excitation approximations. With the exact hierarchy equation method used here, we observe significant differences in the resulting physics, compared to the previous results with various approximations. Double excitations due to counter-rotating-wave terms are also found to have remarkable effects on the dynamics of entanglement.