Genuinely multipartite entangled states and orthogonal arrays

A pure quantum state of N subsystems with d levels each is called k-multipartite maximally entangled state, written k-uniform, if all its reductions to k qudits are maximally mixed. These states form a natural generalization of N-qudits GHZ states which belong to the class 1-uniform states. We establish a link between the combinatorial notion of orthogonal arrays and k-uniform states and prove the existence of several new classes of such states for N-qudit systems. In particular, known Hadamard matrices allow us to explicitly construct 2-uniform states for an arbitrary number of N>5 qubits. We show that finding a different class of 2-uniform states would imply the Hadamard conjecture, so the full classification of 2-uniform states seems to be currently out of reach. Additionally, single vectors of another class of 2-uniform states are one-to-one related to maximal sets of mutually unbiased bases. Furthermore, we establish links between existence of k-uniform states, classical and quantum error correction codes and provide a novel graph representation for such states.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures. Comments are very welcome

Entanglement properties of multipartite informationally complete quantum measurements

We analyze tight informationally complete measurements for arbitrarily large multipartite systems and study their configurations of entanglement. We demonstrate that tight measurements cannot be exclusively composed neither of fully separable nor maximally entangled states. We establish an upper bound on the maximal number of fully separable states allowed by tight measurements and investigate the distinguished case, in which every measurement operator carries the same amount of entanglement. Furthermore, we introduce the notion of nested tight measurements, i.e. multipartite tight informationally complete measurements such that every reduction to a certain number of parties induces a lower dimensional tight measurement, proving that they exist for any number of parties and internal levels.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure, comments are very welcom

Entanglement and quantum combinatorial designs

We introduce several classes of quantum combinatorial designs, namely quantum Latin squares, cubes, hypercubes and a notion of orthogonality between them. A further introduced notion, quantum orthogonal arrays, generalizes all previous classes of designs. We show that mutually orthogonal quantum Latin arrangements can be entangled in the same way than quantum states are entangled. Furthermore, we show that such designs naturally define a remarkable class of genuinely multipartite highly entangled states called $k$-uniform, i.e. multipartite pure states such that every reduction to $k$ parties is maximally mixed. We derive infinitely many classes of mutually orthogonal quantum Latin arrangements and quantum orthogonal arrays having an arbitrary large number of columns. The corresponding multipartite $k$-uniform states exhibit a high persistency of entanglement, which makes them ideal candidates to develop multipartite quantum information protocols.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. Comments are very welcome

Operational approach to Bell inequalities: applications to qutrits

Bell inequalities can be studied both as constraints in the space of probability distributions and as expectation values of multipartite operators. The latter approach is particularly useful when considering outcomes as eigenvalues of unitary operators. This brings the possibility of exploiting the complex structure of the coefficients in the Bell operators. We investigate this avenue of though in the known case of two outcomes, and find new Bell inequalities for the cases of three outcomes and $n=3,4,5$ and $6$ parties. We find their corresponding classical bounds and their maximum violation in the case of qutrits. We further propose a novel way to generate Bell inequalities based on a mapping from maximally entangled states to Bell operators and produce examples for different outcomes and number of parties.Comment: 10 pages, no figures. A sign error in Eq.(10), appearing in the published version, has been correcte

State determination: an iterative algorithm

An iterative algorithm for state determination is presented that uses as physical input the probability distributions for the eigenvalues of two or more observables in an unknown state $\Phi$. Starting form an arbitrary state $\Psi_{0}$, a succession of states $\Psi_{n}$ is obtained that converges to $\Phi$ or to a Pauli partner. This algorithm for state reconstruction is efficient and robust as is seen in the numerical tests presented and is a useful tool not only for state determination but also for the study of Pauli partners. Its main ingredient is the Physical Imposition Operator that changes any state to have the same physical properties, with respect to an observable, of another state.Comment: 11 pages 3 figure

Absolutely Maximally Entangled states, combinatorial designs and multi-unitary matrices

Absolutely Maximally Entangled (AME) states are those multipartite quantum states that carry absolute maximum entanglement in all possible partitions. AME states are known to play a relevant role in multipartite teleportation, in quantum secret sharing and they provide the basis novel tensor networks related to holography. We present alternative constructions of AME states and show their link with combinatorial designs. We also analyze a key property of AME, namely their relation to tensors that can be understood as unitary transformations in every of its bi-partitions. We call this property multi-unitarity.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures. Comments are very welcom