Dynamical generation of maximally entangled states in two identical cavities

Abstract

The generation of entanglement between two identical coupled cavities, each containing a single three-level atom, is studied when the cavities exchange two coherent photons and are in the $N=2,4$ manifolds, where $N$ represents the maximum number of photons possible in either cavity. The atom-photon state of each cavity is described by a qutrit for $N=2$ and a five-dimensional qudit for $N=4$. However, the conservation of the total value of $N$ for the interacting two-cavity system limits the total number of states to only 4 states for $N=2$ and 8 states for $N=4$, rather than the usual 9 for two qutrits and 25 for two five-dimensional qudits. In the $N=2$ manifold, two-qutrit states dynamically generate four maximally entangled Bell states from initially unentangled states. In the $N=4$ manifold, two-qudit states dynamically generate maximally entangled states involving three or four states. The generation of these maximally entangled states occurs rather rapidly for large hopping strengths. The cavities function as a storage of periodically generated maximally entangled states.