Tripartite nonlocality and continuous-variable entanglement in thermal states of trapped ions

JIE LI; THOMÁS FOGARTY; CECILIA CORMICK; JOHN GOOLD; THOMAS BUSCH; MAURO PATERNOSTRO

PHYSICAL REVIEW A - ATOMIC, MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2011 vol. 84 p. 1 - 7

1050-2947

We study a system of three trapped ions in an anisotropic bidimensional trap. By focusing on the transverse modes of the ions, we show that the mutual ion-ion Coulomb interactions set entanglement of a genuine tripartite nature, to some extent persistent to the thermal nature of the vibronic modes. We tackle this issue by addressing a nonlocality test in the phase space of the ionic system and quantifying the genuine residual tripartite entanglement in the continuous variable state of the transverse modes.