Speeding up entanglement degradation

Abstract

We present a method for tracking time-dependent entanglement between different modes of a quantum system as measured by observers in different states of relative (nonuniform) motion. By describing states on a given spacelike hypersurface, observers or detectors in different states of motion can detect different modes of excitation in a quantum field at any desired instant and thereby track various measures of entanglement as function of time. We illustrate our method for a scalar field, showing how entanglement degrades as a function of time if one observer begins in a state of inertial motion but ends in a state of uniform acceleration while the other remains inertial.