Event horizons are tunable factories of quantum entanglement

Abstract

That event horizons generate quantum correlations via the Hawking effect is well known. We argue, however, that the creation of entanglement can be modulated, as desired, by appropriately illuminating the horizon. We adapt techniques from quantum information theory to quantify the entanglement produced during the Hawking process and show that, while ambient thermal noise (e.g. cosmic microwave background radiation) degrades it, the use of squeezed inputs can boost the nonseparability between the interior and exterior regions in a controlled manner. We further apply our ideas to analog event horizons concocted in the laboratory and insist that the ability to tune the generation of entanglement offers a promising route towards detecting quantum signatures of the elusive Hawking effect.