Quantifying entanglement production of quantum operations

The problem of entanglement produced by an arbitrary operator is formulated and a related measure of entanglement production is introduced. This measure of entanglement production satisfies all properties natural for such a characteristic. A particular case is the entanglement produced by a density operator or a density matrix. The suggested measure is valid for operations over pure states as well as over mixed states, for equilibrium as well as nonequilibrium processes. Systems of arbitrary nature can be treated, described by field operators, spin operators, or any other kind of operator that is realized by constructing generalized density matrices. The interplay between entanglement production and phase transitions in statistical systems is analyzed using the examples of Bose-Einstein condensation, the superconducting transition, and magnetic transitions. The relation between the measure of entanglement production and order indices is analyzed.