Bound entanglement in the Jaynes–Cummings model

Abstract

We study in detail entanglement properties of the Jaynes–Cummings model assuming a two-level atom (qubit) interacting with the first N levels of an electromagnetic field mode (qudit) in a cavity. In the Jaynes–Cummings model, the number operator is the conserved quantity that allows for the exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian and thus we study states that commute with this conserved quantity and whose structure is preserved under the Jaynes–Cummings dynamics. Contrary to the common belief, we show that there are bound entangled states that satisfy the symmetries imposed by the conservation of the number of excitations when N > 3. Furthermore we show that the Jaynes–Cummings interaction can be used to generate bound entanglement between the atom and the mode.