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Quenched entanglement harvesting

Adrian Lopez-Raven1,2,*, Robert B. Mann1,2,3,†, and Jorma Louko4,‡

  • *Contact author: adrian.lopez@uwaterloo.ca, a22lopez@uwaterloo.ca, alopezraven@perimeterinstitute.ca
  • †Contact author: rbmann@uwaterloo.ca
  • ‡Contact author: jorma.louko@nottingham.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 085001 – Published 6 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lyhy-ftxz

Abstract

Ultracold fermionic atoms in an optical lattice, with a sudden position-dependent change (a quench) in the effective dispersion relation, have been proposed by Rodríguez-Laguna et al. as an analog spacetime test of the Unruh effect. We provide new support for this analog by analyzing the entanglement of a scalar field in a (1+1)-dimensional continuum spacetime with a similar quench, and the harvesting of this entanglement by a pair of Unruh-DeWitt detectors. We present numerical evidence that the concurrence and mutual information harvested by the detectors are qualitatively similar to those in Rindler spacetime, but they exhibit a small yet noticeable variation when the energy pulse created by the quench crosses the detectors. These findings provide further motivation to implement the experimental proposal of Rodríguez-Laguna et al.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 085001– Published 6 October, 2025
  • Received 11 June 2025
  • Accepted 4 September 2025
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