M. Fleischhauer

• Abstract: The recently proposed idea to generate entanglement between photon states via exchange interactions in an ensemble of atoms (J. D. Franson and T. B. Pitman, Phys. Rev. A 60 , 917 (1999) and J. D. Franson et al., (quant- ph/9912121)) is discussed using an S -matix approach. It is shown that if the nonlinear response of the atoms is negligible and no additional atom-atom interactions are present, exchange interactions cannot produce entanglement between photons states in a process that returns the atoms to their initial state. Entanglement generation requires the presence of a nonlinear atomic response or atom-atom interactions.