Time dependent spatial entanglement in atom-field interaction

By using stochastic ensembles of walkers in physical and in one-body Hilbert spaces the recently proposed time-dependent quantum Monte Carlo (TDQMC) method offers the unique capability to calculate one-body density matrices at fully correlated level, without referencing the many-body quantum state. Here TDQMC is applied to study entanglement of simple systems such as Moshinsky atom (oscillator potentials) and atoms with Coulomb potentials in one spatial dimension. Our findings indicate that the dynamic entanglement of atoms exposed to powerful ultrashort laser pulse can be easily manipulated by introducing an appropriate phase modulation where the negative chirp enhances the entanglement while the positive one suppresses it. These findings can be used to explore the correlation properties of different constituents of complex quantum systems subjected to appropriately shaped laser radiation. (paper)