Dephasing of entangled qubits

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We investigate the influence of nearby two-level systems on the dynamics of a qubit. The intrinsic decoherence is given by a coupling of both the qubit and the two-level systems to a heat bath. Assuming weak interactions between the qubit and the two-level systems we show that the dephasing of the qubit follows a multi-exponential decay. For a flat distribution of energy splittings of the two-level systems the multi-exponential behavior simplifies to a good approximation to a single exponential decay. The rate is given by the sum of the dephasing rate of the isolated qubit plus all relaxation rates for the two-level systems out of their present state. This latter contribution sums up to a rate approximately given by the mean coupling between the qubit and the two-level systems times the number of thermally active neighbors.