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  • Open Access

Optimization of entanglement harvesting with arbitrary temporal profiles: The limit of second order perturbation theory

Marcos Morote-Balboa1,2,* and T. Rick Perche1,†

  • *Contact author: mamo2246@student.su.se
  • †Contact author: rick.perche@su.se
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 085027 – Published 28 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/kq6r-ryl7

Abstract

We study the protocol of entanglement harvesting when two local probes couple to the vacuum of a real scalar quantum field with arbitrary temporal profiles. We use a Hermite expansion to efficiently compute smeared field propagators in closed form, recasting the negativity between the probes as a matrix product. We then optimize the protocol under different signaling conditions, enhancing entanglement harvesting by several orders of magnitude. This optimization would take current experimental proposals beyond the regime of second order perturbation theory.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 085027– Published 28 October, 2026
  • Received 10 May 2026
  • Accepted 16 September 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by Bibsam.

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