Microscopic QED origin of spin entanglement

Abstract

We study effective spin interactions arising from quantum electrodynamics (QED) scattering between localized fermionic spins. By integrating out photon and mediator fields, the dynamics reduce to an effective spin Hamiltonian. For two qubits in the nonrelativistic regime, the resulting interaction takes a tensor dipolar form with an asymptotic decay proportional to \(R^{-3}\). We obtain analytical expressions for the entanglement negativity, highlighting its dependence on coupling strength and spatial configuration. We then examine a setup in which two bath spins interact via a sequential exchange with an intermediate fermionic mediator. At the perturbative order considered, the mediator remains unentangled and induces an effective bath--bath interaction with stronger spatial suppression than in the photon-mediated case. Extending the construction to an \(N\)-spin setting yields an effective interaction network mediated by virtual exchange processes, which can support the generation of multipartite entanglement across the system.