We investigate the time evolution of the entanglement of assistance when one subsystem undergoes the action of local noisy channels. A general factorization law is presented for the evolution equation of entanglement of assistance. Our results demonstrate that the dynamics of the entanglement of assistance is determined by the action of a noisy channel on the pure maximally entangled state, in which the entanglement reduction turns out to be universal for all quantum states entering the channel. This single quantity will make it easy to characterize the entanglement dynamics of entanglement of assistance under unknown channels in the experimental process of producing entangled states by assisted entanglement.

• Received 31 January 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.81.042312