title: Tunneling, decoherence, and entanglement of two spins interacting with a dissipative bath.
abstract: We use numerically exact iterative path integral methods to investigate the decoherence and entanglement dynamics of a tunneling pair of two coupled qubits (spins) system interacting with a dissipative bath. We find that decoherence is generally accompanied by the destruction of entanglement, although the specifics of this destruction depend sensitively on the parameters of the Hamiltonian (qubit-qubit coupling and/or energy bias), the strength of dissipation, the temperature, and the choice of initial condition. We also observe that dissipation can in some cases generate a substantial amount of entanglement. Finally, if an entangled eigenstate exists which does not couple to the environment, the long-time entanglement can significantly exceed the value corresponding to the Boltzmann equilibrium state.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Illinois, 1110 W. Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Mohammad M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Sahrapour
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Makri