  Ion chains are promising platforms for studying and simulating quantum
reservoirs. One interesting feature is that their vibrational modes can mediate
entanglement between two objects which are coupled through the vibrational
modes of the chain. In this work we analyse entanglement between the transverse
vibrations of two heavy impurity defects embedded in an ion chain, which is
generated by the coupling with the chain vibrations. We verify general scaling
properties of the defects dynamics and demonstrate that entanglement between
the defects can be a stationary feature of these dynamics. We then analyse
entanglement in chains composed of tens of ions and propose a measurement
scheme which allows one to verify the existence of the predicted entangled
state.
