Entanglement flow in multipartite systems

We investigate entanglement dynamics in multipartite systems, establishing a quantitative concept of entanglement flow: both flow through individual particles and flow along general networks of interacting particles. In the former case, the rate at which a particle can transmit entanglement is shown to depend on that particle’s entanglement with the rest of the system. In the latter, we derive a set of entanglement rate equations, relating the rate of entanglement generation between two subsets of particles to the entanglement already present further back along the network. We use the rate equations to derive a lower bound on entanglement generation in qubit chains, and compare this to existing entanglement creation protocols.