Entanglement dynamics for atoms near a reflecting boundary: Enhancement and suppression by environment-induced interactions

Abstract:We investigate how environment-induced interactions influence the entanglement dynamics of two atoms held at fixed positions near a perfectly reflecting boundary. Within the framework of open quantum systems, we explicitly incorporate the environment-induced energy shifts, including both atom-boundary contributions and an environment-induced atom-atom interaction, which are often neglected in previous studies. We show that, for any initial two-atom state, these energy-shift effects qualitatively and quantitatively modify the entanglement dynamics relative to treatments that omit them. Depending on the geometry and parameter regime, the environment-induced interactions can either enhance entanglement generation -- yielding a larger maximum concurrence and a longer entanglement lifetime -- or suppress it, reducing both the peak concurrence and the survival time. This behavior contrasts sharply with the free-space case, where the environment-induced atom-atom interaction affects entanglement generation only for a restricted class of initial states and does so in an exclusively assisting manner.

arXiv:2602.23773 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2602.23773v2 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.23773 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Phys. Rev. A 113, 062437 (2026)

https://doi.org/10.1103/bcyl-6674 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources

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