Temperature dependent quantum correlations in three dipolar coupled two-level atoms

Abstract

We investigate the thermal entanglement characteristics of three dipole-coupled two-level atoms arranged in two different configurations - in a line with nearest neighbour coupling and in a closed loop with each atom interacting with both its neighbours. It is observed that in loop configuration, any one of the three atoms is indeed entangled with the other two atoms in the system, which are not mutually entangled, and further that this feature is specific to only the loop configuration, which is markedly absent in the line configuration. A detailed study of the quantum correlations demonstrated how these can be tuned by varying the temperature and the dipole dipole coupling strength, in both the configurations.