General recipe for immediate entanglement death and birth via Bell states: environmental Heisenberg exchange with transition as an example

Abstract Environment is known to play a dual role in both extinguishing and establishing entanglement, leading to entanglement sudden death (ESD) and entanglement sudden birth (ESB). In this paper, we propose a recipe for the initial states of two qubits to undergo ESD, ESB, or transition of finite duration (TFD) between them. The recipe is explained through a physical picture of entanglement penetrability. While this recipe is general (i.e., it does not require a specific type of interaction), a spin-star model with environmental Heisenberg exchange is chosen for illustration. We introduce the entanglement switch parameter (ESP), whose sign indicates whether bipartite entanglement between the qubits is switched on or off. Utilizing Bell states, we show how the penetrability of the ESP enables the observation of ESD and ESB. The classical (quantum) weighting of the Bell states encodes the ESP for initial mixed (pure) states. When more than two Bell states are adopted, the ESP permits states to penetrate through the entanglement-unentanglement boundary. In this case, the penetrability of a small ESP ensures the immediate occurrence of ESD or ESB and indicates the TFD if the local time-even symmetry in the entanglement monotone is also satisfied. When no more than two Bell states are employed, the penetrability is lost, and TFD is only identified in some mixed states but not in pure states. Thanks to the simplicity of this model, analytic results are provided. We also analyze the symmetries that can convert or alter ESD into ESB, and vice versa. The recipe enhances the controllability of entanglement dynamics and facilitates entanglement engineering.