The impact of phonon-assisted tunneling on optical and quantum characteristics of a coupled two-quantum dot system

This work investigates the impact of decoherence induced by pure dephasing and phonon-assisted tunneling mechanisms on the optical and quantum properties of two quantum dots. Special attention is given to the density matrix at steady state, and a detailed analysis of populations, coherences, optical transitions and the emission spectrum is performed. Additionally, we study the influence of both phonon-decoherence mechanisms on bipartite entanglement and the degree of mixedness of the system. In particular, our findings indicate that the phonon-assisted tunneling mechanism partially affects the coherences of the system and quantum properties when the imbalance of phonon absorption and emission is significant. Conversely, the pure dephasing mechanism does not affect the populations but strongly entangles the quantum dots and the reservoir, inducing maximally mixed states and significantly reducing the spectral splitting in the emission spectrum of the system.