Evolution equation of entanglement for general bipartite systems

We explore how entanglement of a general bipartite system evolves when one subsystem undergoes the action of an arbitrary noisy channel. It is found that the dynamics of entanglement for general bipartite systems under the influence of such channel is determined by the channel's action on the maximally entangled state, which includes as a special case the results for two-qubit systems [Nature Physics 4, 99 (2008)]. In particular, for multi-qubit or qubit-qudit systems, we get a general factorization law for evolution equation of entanglement with one qubit being subject to a noisy channel. Our results can help the experimental characterization of entanglement dynamics.