Generating entangled photons from the vacuum by accelerated measurements: Quantum-information theory and the Unruh-Davies effect

Building on the well-known Unruh-Davies effect, we examine the effects of projective measurements and quantum communications between accelerated and stationary observers. We find that the projective measurement by a uniformly accelerated observer can excite real particles from the vacuum in the inertial frame, even if no additional particles are created by the measurement process in the accelerating frame. Furthermore, we show that the particles created by this accelerating measurement can be highly entangled in the inertial frame, and it is also possible to use this process to generate even maximally entangled two-qubit states by a certain arrangement of measurements. As a by-product of our analysis, we also show that a single qubit of information can be perfectly transmitted from the accelerating observer to the inertial one. In principle, such an effect could be exploited in designing an entangled-state generator for quantum communication.