Control of entanglement following the photoionization of trapped, hydrogen-like ions

Density matrix theory is applied to re-investigate the entanglement in the spin state of pairs of electrons following the photoionization of trapped, hydrogen-like ions. For the ionization of one out of two non-interacting atoms, in particular, we analyzed how the entanglement between the electrons is changed owing to their interaction with the radiation field. Detailed calculations on the concurrence of the final spin-state of the electrons have been performed for the photoionization of hydrogen as well as for hydrogen-like Xe53+ and U91+ ions. From these computations it is shown that the degree of entanglement, which is quite well preserved for neutral hydrogen, will be strongly affected by relativistic and non-dipole effects of the radiation field as the nuclear charge of the ions is increased.