title: Entanglement and decoherence: fragile and robust entanglement.
abstract: The destruction of entanglement of open quantum systems by decoherence is investigated in the asymptotic long-time limit. For this purpose a general and analytically solvable decoherence model is presented which does not involve any weak-coupling or Markovian assumption. It is shown that two fundamentally different classes of entangled states can be distinguished and that they can be influenced significantly by two important environmental properties, namely, its initially prepared state and its size. Quantum states of the first class are fragile against decoherence so that they can be disentangled asymptotically even if coherences between pointer states are still present. Quantum states of the second type are robust against decoherence. Asymptotically they can be disentangled only if also decoherence is perfect. A simple criterion for identifying these two classes on the basis of two-qubit entanglement is presented.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Břehová 7, 115 19 Praha 1-Staré Město, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jaroslav
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Novotný
authors.forename: Gernot
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Alber
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Jex