Entangling two atoms in spatially separated cavities through both photon emission and absorption processes

Abstract

We consider a system consisting of a $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$-type atom and a $V$-type atom, which are individually trapped in two spatially separated cavities that are connected by an optical fiber. We show that an extremely entangled state of the two atoms can be deterministically generated through both photon emission of the $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$-type atom and photon absorption of the $V$-type atom in an ideal situation. The influence of various decoherence processes such as spontaneous emission and photon loss on the fidelity of the entangled state is also investigated. We find that the effect of photon leakage out of the fiber on the fidelity can be greatly diminished in some special cases. In regard to the effect of spontaneous emission and photon loss from the cavities, we find that the present scheme with high fidelity may be realized under current experiment conditions. We also show that either the $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$- or $V$-type level configuration can be realized on the same atom by initializing the atomic state, and we show the present scheme is scalable.