Qubit-environment entanglement in time-dependent pure dephasing

Abstract: We show that the methods for quantification of system-environment entanglement that were recently developed for interactions that lead to pure decoherence of the system can be straightforwardly generalized to time-dependent Hamiltonians of the same type. This includes the if-and-only-if criteria of separability, as well as the entanglement measure applicable to qubit systems, and methods of detection of entanglement by operations and measurements performed solely on the system without accessing the environment. We use these methods to study the nature of the decoherence of a qubit-oscillator system. Qubit-oscillator entanglement is essential for developing bosonic quantum technology with quantum non-Gaussian states and its applications in quantum sensing and computing. The dominating bosonic platforms, trapped ions, electromechanics, and superconducting circuits, are based on the time-dependent gates that use such entanglement to achieve new quantum sensors and quantum error correction. The step-like time-dependence of the Hamiltonian that is taken into account allows us to capture complex interplay between the build-up of classical and quantum correlations, which could not be replicated in time-independent scenarios.