Quantum entanglement in two-electron atomic models

Abstract

We explore the main entanglement properties exhibited by the eigenfunctions of two exactly soluble two-electron models, the Crandall atom and the Hooke atom, and compare them with the entanglement features of helium-like systems. We compute the amount of entanglement associated with the wavefunctions corresponding to the fundamental and first few excited states of these models. We investigate the dependence of the entanglement on the parameters of the models and on the quantum numbers of the eigenstates. It is found that the amount of entanglement of the system tends to increase with energy in both models. In addition, we study the entanglement of a few states of helium-like systems, which we compute using high-quality Kinoshita-like eigenfunctions. The dependence of the entanglement of helium-like atoms on the nuclear charge and on energy is found to be consistent with the trends observed in the previous two model systems.