Killing quantum entanglement by acceleration or a black hole

Abstract

Abstract: We consider two entangled accelerating qubits coupled with real scalar fields, each described by the Unruh-Wald model. It is demonstrated that because of the Unruh effect of the fields, the bipartite entanglement between the two qubits suddenly dies when the acceleration of one or more qubits are large enough. We also consider three entangled accelerating qubits in GHZ state and in W state, with equal acceleration-frequency ratio, and found that in either state, the tripartite entanglement suddenly dies at a certain value of acceleration-frequency ratio. The equivalence between the Rindler metric and the Schwarzschild metric in the vicinity of the horizon of a black hole implies that for two entangled qubits outside a black hole, the entanglement suddenly dies when one or both of the qubits are close enough to the horizon, while the three entangled qubits in GHZ or W state, the tripartite entanglement suddenly dies when these qubits are close enough to the horizon.