Abstract
We study, in the framework of open quantum systems, the entanglement dynamics for a quantum system composed of two uniformly accelerated Unruh-Dewitt detectors interacting with a bath of massive scalar fields in the Minkowski vacuum. We find that the entanglement evolution for the quantum system coupled with massive fields is always slower compared with that of the one coupled with massless fields, and this time-delay effect brought about by the field being massive can however be counteracted by a large enough acceleration, in contrast to the case of a static quantum system in a thermal bath, where this time delay is not affected by the temperature. Remarkably, the maximal concurrence of the quantum system generated during evolution may increase with acceleration for any inter-detector separation while that for static ones in a thermal bath decreases monotonically with temperature, and this can be considered as an anti-Unruh effect in terms of the entanglement generated.
Highlights
Quantum field theory predicts that a uniformly accelerated observer perceives the vacuum of an inertial observer as a thermal bath at a temperature proportional to its proper acceleration, which is known as the Unruh effect [1,2,3,4]
We find that the entanglement evolution for the quantum system coupled with massive fields is always slower compared with that of the one coupled with massless fields, and this time-delay effect brought about by the field being massive can be counteracted by a large enough acceleration, in contrast to the case of a static quantum system in a thermal bath, where this time delay is not affected by the temperature
A natural question is, will there be essential differences between the behaviors of two uniformly accelerated Unruh-DeWitt detectors coupled with massive fields in the Minkowski vacuum and that of a static one in a thermal bath in terms of entanglement dynamics? In particular, will there be anti-Unruh phenomena, e.g. the entanglement generated for accelerated detectors increases with acceleration, while that for static ones in a thermal bath decreases with temperature? In the present paper, we study, in the framework of open quantum systems, the entanglement dynamics for a uniformly accelerated quantum system composed of two Unruh-DeWitt detectors interacting with a bath of fluctutating massive scalar fields in the Minkowski vacuum
Summary
Quantum field theory predicts that a uniformly accelerated observer perceives the vacuum of an inertial observer as a thermal bath at a temperature proportional to its proper acceleration, which is known as the Unruh effect [1,2,3,4]. [33], the entanglement generation of two uniformly accelerated Unruh-DeWitt detectors coupled with fluctuating massless scalar fields in the Minkowski vacuum with a vanishing separation has been studied, and it has been shown that the asymptotic entanglement is exactly the same as that immersed in a thermal bath at the Unruh temperature. When an Unruh-DeWitt detector is coupled with massive scalar fields, transitions among different eigenstates for an accelerated detector can still occur even when the mass of the field is greater than the energy level spacing of the detector [4, 6, 8, 38], which is impossible for a static one in a thermal bath A natural question is, will there be essential differences between the behaviors of two uniformly accelerated Unruh-DeWitt detectors coupled with massive fields in the Minkowski vacuum and that of a static one in a thermal bath in terms of entanglement dynamics?
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