Control of atom-atom entanglement by cavity detuning

Using the atomic levels previously employed to demonstrate a two-photon maser, we show that the atom-atom entanglement produced by the successive passage of two three-level Rydberg atoms across a single-mode lossless cavity can be enhanced using the Stark shift. The atoms are assumed to be prepared in their excited states and to interact with the field during the same amount of time. Employing a physically motivated perturbation-theory approach, we obtain an effective two-level Hamiltonian. We show that, within the limits of validity of the approximation, atomic entanglement can be controlled by changing the frequency of the cavity field, and can be enhanced up to a maximum where the squared concurrence attains the value 16/27.