Eur. Phys. J. D 64, 521-529 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2011-10683-5

Regular Article

Quantum dissonance induced by a thermal field and its dynamics in dissipative systems

¹ Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Laser Polarization and Information Technology, Department of Physics, Qufu Normal University, Qufu 273165, P.R. China
² Institute of Physics, 10 Dao Tan, Ba Dinh, Hanoi, Vietnam

^a e-mail: manzx81@hotmail.com

Received: 2 December 2010
Received in final form: 12 January 2011
Published online: 5 July 2011

Abstract

In this paper, we study quantum correlation in separable systems termed quantum dissonance [K. Modi, T. Paterek, W. Son, V. Vedral, M. Williamson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 080501 (2010)]. Firstly, we study the emergence of quantum dissonance between two atoms prepared in uncorrelated states and coupled to a single-mode thermal field. We show that even for situations when the thermal field cannot entangle the two atoms, it can nevertheless induce quantum dissonance between them. Then, we investigate the dynamics including the transfer in both Markovian and non-Markovian regimes of quantum dissonance due to dissipation modeled by two independent subsystems each of which consists of a leaky cavity containing a two-level atom and surrounded by a reservoir. The two subsystems possess some amount of atomic quantum dissonance at the beginning but do not interact with each other by any means later on. We show that the quantum dissonance can be transferred among the composite subsystems, but the way it evolves and is transferred may be very different compared to that of entanglement. Finally, we present an efficient method to refrain the unwanted transfer of quantum dissonance from interested systems to reservoirs.