Sudden death and long-lived entanglement of two trapped ions

The dynamical properties of quantum entanglement in two effective two-level trapped ions interacting with a laser field are studied in terms of the negative eigenvalues of the partial transposition of the density operator. In contrast to the usual belief that destroying the entanglement can be observed due to the environment, it is found that the Stark shift can also produce sudden death of entanglement and long-lived entanglement between the qubits that are prepared initially in separable states or mixed states. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.