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Phys. Rev. D 78, 044023 (2008) [9 pages]

Entanglement of quantum fluctuations in the inflationary universe

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Yasusada Nambu
Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan

Received 12 May 2008; published 12 August 2008

We investigate quantum entanglement of a scalar field in the inflationary universe. By introducing a bipartite system using a lattice model of scalar field, we apply the separability criterion based on the partial transpose operation and numerically calculate the bipartite entanglement between separate spatial regions. We find that the initial entangled state becomes separable or disentangled when the size of the spatial regions exceed the Hubble horizon. This is a necessary condition for the appearance of classicality of the quantum fluctuation. We further investigate the condition for the appearance of the classical distribution function and find that the condition is given by the inequality for the symplectic eigenvalue of the covariance matrix of the scalar field.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.78.044023
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.78.044023
PACS:
04.62.+v

*nambu@gravity.phys.nagoya-u.ac.jp