  We study creation of bi- and multipartite continuous variable entanglement in
structures of coupled quantum harmonic oscillators. By adjusting the
interaction strengths between nearest neighbors we show how to maximize the
entanglement production between the arms in a Y-shaped structure where an
initial single mode squeezed state is created in the first oscillator of the
input arm. We also consider the action of the same structure as an approximate
quantum cloner. For a specific time in the system dynamics the last oscillators
in the output arms can be considered as imperfect copies of the initial state.
By increasing the number of arms in the structure, multipartite entanglement is
obtained, as well as 1 to M cloning. Finally, we are considering configurations
that implement the symmetric splitting of an initial entangled state. All
calculations are carried out within the framework of the rotating wave
approximation in quantum optics, and our predictions could be tested with
current available experimental techniques.
