Experimental multiparticle entanglement dynamics induced by decoherence

Abstract

Multiparticle entanglement leads to richer correlations than two-particle entanglement and gives rise to striking contradictions with local realism, inequivalent classes of entanglement, and applications such as one-way or topological quantum computing. When exposed to decohering or dissipative environments, multiparticle entanglement yields subtle dynamical features and access to new classes of states and applications. Here, using a string of trapped ions, we experimentally characterize the dynamics of entanglement of a multiparticle state under the influence of decoherence. By embedding an entangled state of four qubits in a decohering environment (via spontaneous decay), we observe a rich dynamics crossing distinctive domains: Bell-inequality violation, entanglement superactivation, bound entanglement, and full separability. We also develop new theoretical tools for characterizing entanglement in quantum states. Our techniques to control the environment can be used to enable novel quantum-computation, state-engineering, and simulation paradigms based on dissipation and decoherence.

For a simultaneously submitted related work see arXiv:1005.1258

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• An Open-System Quantum Simulator with Trapped Ions
• 14-qubit entanglement: creation and coherence
• Entanglement criteria and full separability of multi-qubit quantum states
• Hyperentangled mixed phased Dicke states: optical design and detection
• Experimentally implementable criteria revealing substructures of genuine multipartite entanglement
• Experimental Extraction of Secure Correlations from a Noisy Private State
• Low-dimensional quite noisy bound entanglement with cryptographic key