We show that two identical solid-state qubits can be made fully entangled (starting from a completely mixed state) with probability 1/4 just by measuring them with a detector, equally coupled to the qubits. This happens in the case of repeated strong (projective) measurements as well as in a more realistic case of weak continuous measurement. In the latter case, the entangled state can be identified by a flat spectrum of the detector shot noise, while the nonentangled state (probability 3/4) leads to a spectral peak at the Rabi frequency with the maximum peak-to-pedestal ratio of 32/3.

• Received 3 April 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.67.241305