Entanglement in a continuously measured two-level system coupled to a harmonic oscillator

Abstract

The dynamics of a two-level system (TLS) coupled to a harmonic oscillator (HO) is studied under the combined effect of a thermal bath acting on the HO and of a detector continuously measuring one of the components of the spinlike TLS. The analysis focuses on the dynamics of the 'relative entropy of entanglement' (REE) in the one-energy-excitation manifold of the reduced TLS+HO system. For this model system, a stationary state is shown to be reached for which the relative entropy of entanglement is in general nonzero, even though, under certain approximations, the separate effects of bath and detector would be to remove any trace of this resource from the system. Analytical as well as numerical results are obtained for the REE as a function of the different parameters involved in the model definition.