Entanglement generation and entropy growth due to intrinsic decoherence in the Jaynes-Cummings model

We study how intrinsic decoherence leads to growing entropy and a strong degradation of the maximal generated entanglement in the multiquanta Jaynes-Cummings model. We find an exact solution of the Milburn equation in multiquanta precesses and calculate the partial entropy of the particle (atom or trapped ion) and field subsystem as well as total entropy. As the total entropy is not conserved, and it is shown to increase as time develops, one cannot use the partial field or atomic entropy as a direct measure of particle-field entanglement. For a good entropy measure, we also calculate the negativity of the eigenvalues of the partially transposed density matrix. We find that, at least qualitatively, the difference of the total entropy to the sum of field and atom partial entropies can be also used as an entanglement measure. Our results show that the degree of entanglement is very sensitive to any change in the intrinsic decoherence parameter. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.