Geometric properties of the set of quantum entangled states are investigated.
We propose an explicit method to compute the dimension of local orbits for any
mixed state of the general K x M problem and characterize the set of
effectively different states (which cannot be related by local
transformations). Thus we generalize earlier results obtained for the simplest
2 x 2 system, which lead to a stratification of the 6D set of N=4 pure states.
We define the concept of absolutely separable states, for which all globally
equivalent states are separable.Comment: 16 latex pages, 4 figures in epsf, minor corrections, references
updated, to appear in Phys. Rev.
