Engineering correlation and entanglement dynamics in spin systems

T. S. Cubitt, J. I. Cirac

Published 2007-01-10Version 1

We show that the correlation and entanglement dynamics of spin systems can be understood in terms of propagation of spin waves. This gives a simple, physical explanation of the behaviour seen in a number of recent works, in which a localised, low-energy excitation is created and allowed to evolve. But it also extends to the scenario of translationally invariant systems in states far from equilibrium, which require less local control to prepare. Spin-wave evolution is completely determined by the system's dispersion relation, and the latter typically depends on a small number of external, physical parameters. Therefore, this new insight into correlation dynamics opens up the possibility not only of predicting but also of controlling the propagation velocity and dispersion rate, by manipulating these parameters. We demonstrate this analytically in a simple, example system.