Generating a Two-Qubit Entanglement State in Cavity QED

We propose a novel scheme for the generation of two-atom maximally entangled states in cavity quantum electrodynamics. The scheme does not require the transfer of quantum information between the atoms and cavity. The distinct advantage of the proposed scheme is that during the operation the cavity is only virtually excited and thus the efficient decoherence time of the cavity is greatly prolonged. Then it is quite simple but also very robust to the cavity decay and the influence of the thermal field.