The mean field approximation and disentanglement

Abstract

The mean field approximation becomes applicable when entanglement is sufficiently weak. We explore a nonlinear term that can be added to the Schrödinger equation without violating unitarity of the time evolution. We find that the added term suppresses entanglement, without affecting the evolution of any product state. The dynamics generated by the modified Schrödinger equation is explored for the case of a two-spin 1/2 system. We find that for this example the added term strongly affects the dynamics when the Hartmann Hahn matching condition is nearly satisfied.