Steady entanglement out of thermal equilibrium

Abstract

We study two two-level atomic quantum systems (qubits) placed close to a body held at a temperature different from that of the surrounding walls. While at thermal equilibrium the two-qubit dynamics is characterized by not entangled steady thermal states, we show that absence of thermal equilibrium may bring to the generation of entangled steady states. Remarkably, this entanglement emerges from the two-qubit dissipative dynamic itself, without any further external action on the two qubits, suggesting a new protocol to produce and protect entanglement which is intrinsically robust to environmental effects.