The entanglement of two dipole–dipole coupled atoms in a cavity interacting with a thermal field

We investigate the entanglement properties of a system of two dipole–dipole coupled two-level atoms resonantly interacting with a thermal field in a high-Q cavity. We obtain the evolution operator for this system in an analytical form, and use it to evaluate the atom–atom entanglement through the calculation of the negativity. We find that, despite the destructive effect of thermal noise, the dipole interaction yields a considerable amount of entanglement between the two atoms.