Collective dynamics and entanglement of two distant atoms embedded into single-negative index material

We study the dynamics of two two-level atoms embedded near to the interface of paired meta-material slabs, one of negative permeability and the other of negative permittivity. The interface behaves as a plasmonic waveguide composed of surface-plasmon polariton modes. It is found that significantly different dynamics occur for the resonant and an off-resonant couplings of the plasma field to the atoms. In the case of the resonant coupling, the plasma field does not appear as a dissipative reservoir to the atoms. We adopt the image method and show that the dynamics of the two atoms are completely equivalent to those of a four-atom system. Moreover, two threshold coupling strengths exist, one corresponding to the strength of coupling of the plasma field to the symmetric and the other the antisymmetric mode of the two-atom system. The thresholds distinguish between the non-Markovian (memory preserving) and Markovian (memoryless) regimes of the evolutions that different time scales of the evolution of the memory effects and entanglement can be observed. The Markovian regime is characterized by exponentially decaying whereas the non-Markovian regime by sinusoidally oscillating contributions to the evolution of the probability amplitudes. The solutions predict a large and long living entanglement mediated by the plasma field in both Markovian and non-Markovian regimes of the evolution. We also show that a simultaneous Markovian and non-Markovian regime of the evolution may occur in which the memory effects exist over a finite evolution time. In the case of an off-resonant coupling of the atoms to the plasma field, the atoms interact with each other by exchanging virtual photons which results in the dynamics corresponding to those of two atoms coupled to a common reservoir. In addition, the entanglement is significantly enhanced under the off-resonant coupling.