Ordering and classifying multipartite quantum states by their entanglement content remains an open problem. One class of highly entangled states, useful in quantum information protocols, the absolutely maximally entangled (AME) ones, are especially hard to compare as all their subsystems are maximally random. While it is well known that there is no AME state of four qubits, many analytical examples and numerically generated ensembles of four-qutrit AME states are known. However, we prove the surprising result that there is truly only one AME state of four qutrits up to local unitary equivalence. In contrast, for larger local dimensions, the number of local unitary classes of AME states is shown to be infinite. Of special interest is the case of local dimension 6, where it was established recently that a four-party AME state does exist, providing a quantum solution to the classically impossible Euler problem of 36 officers. Based on this, an infinity of quantum solutions are constructed, and we prove that these are not equivalent. The methods developed can be usefully generalized to multipartite states of any number of particles.
Ordering and classifying multipartite quantum states by their entanglement content remains an open problem. One class of highly entangled states, useful in quantum information protocols, the absolutely maximally entangled (AME) ones, are especially hard to compare as all their subsystems are maximally random. While it is well known that there is no AME state of four qubits, many analytical examples and numerically generated ensembles of four-qutrit AME states are known. However, we prove the surprising result that there is truly only one AME state of four qutrits up to local unitary equivalence. In contrast, for larger local dimensions, the number of local unitary classes of AME states is shown to be infinite. Of special interest is the case of local dimension 6, where it was established recently that a four-party AME state does exist, providing a quantum solution to the classically impossible Euler problem of 36 officers. Based on this, an infinity of quantum solutions are constructed, and we prove that these are not equivalent. The methods developed can be usefully generalized to multipartite states of any number of particles.
Abstract The classification of multipartite entanglement is essential as it serves as a resource for various quantum information processing tasks. This study concerns a particular class of highly entangled multipartite states, the so-called absolutely maximally entangled (AME) states. These are characterized by maximal entanglement across all possible bipartitions. In particular we analyze the local unitary (LU) equivalence among AME states using invariants. One of our main findings is that the existence of special irredundant orthogonal arrays implies the existence of an infinite number of equivalence classes of AME states constructed from these. In particular, we show that there are infinitely many LU inequivalent three-party AME states for local dimension d > 2 and five-party AME states for d ⩾ 2 .
Absolutely maximally entangled states of four six-level systems, AME(4,6), are the quantum solutions of Euler's problem of the thirty-six officers. Until recently all reported solutions were complex, and it was conjectured that no real orthogonal 2-unitary matrix of order 36 exists. We give real AME(4,6) states with 60 non-zero coefficients in {±1,2}/72. Of their thirty-six officers, 12 are classical, as some must be whenever fewer than 72 coefficients are non-zero. They lie in the −1 eigenspace of an order-4 local symmetry, and on their support the AME conditions become linear. We derive two closed-form families of AME(4,6) states that meet at one of these states: a 10-parameter family that is supported on 72 basis states, and an 11-parameter family on 60 basis states. At each of its two ends the first family loses 12 coefficients, and the AME states on the remaining 60 basis states form an 11-parameter family: the second family at one end, and an analogous family at the other. These two 60-term families contain 4096 real AME states up to diagonal local unitaries, 1024 of which are limits of the first family. They fall into exactly 20 classes under local unitaries and permutations of the parties, and we certify their separation with interval arithmetic.
The negative solution to the famous problem of 36 officers of Euler implies that there are no two orthogonal Latin squares of order six. We show that the problem has a solution, provided the officers are entangled, and construct orthogonal quantum Latin squares of this size. As a consequence, we find an example of the long-elusive Absolutely Maximally Entangled state AME(4,6) of four subsystems with six levels each, equivalently a 2-unitary matrix of size 36, which maximizes the entangling power among all bipartite unitary gates of this dimension, or a perfect tensor with four indices, each running from one to six. This special state deserves the appellation golden AME state, as the golden ratio appears prominently in its elements. This result allows us to construct a pure nonadditive quhex quantum error detection code ((3,6,2))_{6}, which saturates the Singleton bound and allows one to encode a six-level state into a triplet of such states.
Understanding and classifying multipartite entanglement is fundamental to quantum information processing. This work focuses on absolutely maximally entangled (AME) states, a class of highly entangled states characterized by their maximal entanglement across any bipartitions. To analyze and classify AME states, we employ the minimal decomposition entropy, defined as the minimum Rényi entropy Sq associated with the state's decomposition over all local product bases. This quantity identifies the product bases in which the state is maximally localized, thereby yielding optimal representations for analyzing properties of AME states.
We develop an efficient algorithm for computing the minimal decomposition entropy for finite q>1 and compare AME and Haar-random states for q=2 and q=∞ in qubit, qutrit, and ququad systems. For q=2, AME states of four qutrits and ququads show lower minimal entropy than generic states, indicating sparser optimal forms. For q=∞ -- related to the geometric measure of entanglement -- AME states exhibit higher entanglement. The algorithm also simplifies known AME states into sparser representations, aiding in distinguishing genuinely quantum AME states from those constructible from classical combinatorial designs. Our results advance the classification of AME states and demonstrate the utility of minimal decomposition entropy as both a local unitary invariant and a tool for state simplification.
Absolutely maximally entangled, AME, states are pure multipartite states that give rise to the maximally mixed states when half or more of the parties are traced out. AME states find applications in fields like teleportation or quantum secret sharing, and the problem of finding conditions on their existence has been considered in a number of papers. We consider here AME states of minimal support, that are simpler to analyse. An equivalence with coding theory gives a sufficient condition for their existence, that the number of sites be equal to the local dimension plus one, when the local dimension d is a power of a prime number. In this paper, an equivalence with latin hypercubes is used to prove that the above sufficient condition fails in the first case in which the local dimension is not a prime power, d=6. Results for other values of d are also given.
We prove that an absolutely maximally entangled state of seven qudits exists if and only if the local dimension satisfies d≥3. Prior to this work, to the best of our knowledge, AME(7,d) states were known to exist only when d is a prime power other than 2, or when d can be expressed as a product of dimensions for which existence was already known. Since it has been proved that no AME(7,2) state exists, it remains to establish existence for all d≥3. We construct cyclic quadratic-phase states for every odd local dimension and develop a coupled binary--odd-dimensional construction for every dimension congruent to 2 modulo 4. Together with the known power-of-two cases and the product property of AME states, these constructions cover every local dimension d≥3.