Access

News and Views

Nature Physics 4, 97–98 (1 February 2008) | doi:10.1038/nphys847

Quantum mechanics: Dynamics of entanglement

Christian Roos

Quantum entanglement is a vital resource in quantum information science. A theoretical framework now provides a better understanding of how these non-classical correlations decay in a real environment. Quantum information theory teaches us how to solve certain computation or communication problems efficiently by basing them on quantum principles, in particular on the ability to create and manipulate quantum entanglement between different parts of a system. But experimentalists who work towards bringing such ideas to fruition by constructing suitable quantum devices will invariably encounter another kind of entanglement, originating from interactions of the quantum system under consideration with uncontrolled degrees of freedom, usually termed 'environment'.