Suppression of entanglement in two-mode Gaussian open systems

Abstract: We study the evolution of the entanglement of two independent bosonic modes embedded in a thermal environment, in the framework of the theory of open quantum systems. As a measure of entanglement we use the logarithmic negativity. For a non-zero temperature of the thermal reservoir the entangled initial Gaussian states become always separable in a finite time. For initial squeezed thermal states we calculate the survival time of entanglement and analyze its dependence on temperature, squeezing parameter and mean thermal photon numbers. For a zero temperature of the thermal bath an entangled initial state remains entangled for all finite times, but in the limit of asymptotically large times it becomes separable.