Entanglement in Three Coupled Harmonic Oscillators

Abstract

We develop an approach in solving exactly the problem of three-body oscillators including general quadratic interactions in the coordinates for arbitrary masses and couplings. We introduce a unitary transformation of three independent angles to end up with a diagonalized Hamiltonian. Using the representation theory of the group $SU(3)$, we explicitly determine the solutions of the energy spectrum. Considering the ground state together with reduced density matrix, we derive the corresponding purity function that is giving rise to minimal and maximal entanglement under suitable conditions. The cases of realizing one variable among three is discussed and know results in literature are recovered.