Dynamics and protection of entanglement in n-qubit systems within Markovian and non-Markovian environments

Abstract

We provide an analytical investigation of the pairwise entanglement dynamics for a system, consisting an arbitrary number of qubits dissipating into a common and non-Markovian environment for both weak and strong coupling regimes. In the latter case, a revival of pairwise entanglement due to the memory depth of the environment is observed. The leakage of photons into a continuum state is assumed to be the source of dissipation. We show that for an initially Werner state, the environment washes out the pairwise entanglement, but a series of non-selective measurements can protect the relevant entanglement. On the other hand, by limiting the number of qubits initially in the superposition of single excitation, a stationary entanglement can be created between qubits initially in the excited and ground states. Finally, we determine the stationary distribution of the entanglement versus the total number of qubits in the system.