Entanglement through high-energy scattering in noncommutative quantum electrodynamics

Abstract We analyze the tree-level generation of entanglement through some key scattering processes in massless quantum electrodynamics on canonical noncomutative spacetime with space-space type of noncommutativity. The fermions in the noncommutative theory will be zero charge fermions. The scattering processes we shall study do not occur in ordinary Minkowski spacetime. We shall use the concurrence to characterize the amount of entanglement generated through a given scattering process. We shall show that, at tree-level, the concurrence for the scattering of two photons of opposite helicity is given by the same expression as in the case of the scattering of gluons in ordinary Minkowski spacetime. Thus, maximal entanglement is achieved if and only if the polar scattering angle is equal to $$\pi /2$$ π / 2 . We also compute the concurrence for the head-on collision in the laboratory reference frame of two fermions of opposite helicity to obtain the same result as in the case of photon scattering. Finally, we shall study a type of collision at right angles in the laboratory frame of fermions with opposite helicity. We show that in the latter case the concurrence depends on energy of the incoming fermions, the noncommutativity matrix $$\theta ^{ij}$$ θ ij , the polar, $$\theta $$ θ , and azimuth angle, $$\phi $$ ϕ , of the zero-momentum frame of the incoming fermions. In this latter case we see that when $$\theta =\pi /2$$ θ = π / 2 there are values of $$\phi $$ ϕ for which no entanglement is generated.