Entanglement Sudden Death in Three Qubit X-States

Abstract

I explore the entanglement dynamics of a three qubit system in an initial X-state undergoing decoherence including the possible exhibition of entanglement sudden death (ESD). To quantify entanglement I utilize negativity measures and make use of appropriate entanglement witnesses. The negativity results are then extended to X-states with an arbitraty number of qubits. I also demonstrate non-standard behavior of the tri-partite negativity entanglement metric, its sudden appearance after some amount of decoherence followed quickly by its disappearance. Finally, I solve for a lower bound on the three qubit X-state concurrence, demonstrate when this bound goes to zero, and outline simplifcations for the calculation of higher order X-state concurrences.