Eur. Phys. J. D (2016) 70: 54
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2016-60729-1

Regular Article

Entangled graphs: a classification of four-qubit entanglement

¹ Department of Physics, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Evin, 19839 Tehran, Iran
² Department of Physics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

^a e-mail: masoud.gharahi@gmail.com

Received: 28 December 2015
Published online: 10 March 2016

Abstract

We use the concept of entangled graphs with weighted edges to present a classification for four-qubit entanglement which is based neither on the LOCC nor the SLOCC. Entangled graphs, first introduced by Plesch et al. [Phys. Rev. A 67, 012322 (2003)], are structures such that each qubit of a multi-qubit system is represented as a vertex and an edge between two vertices denotes bipartite entanglement between the corresponding qubits. Our classification is based on the use of generalized Schmidt decomposition of pure states of multi-qubit systems. We show that for every possible entangled graph one can find a pure state such that the reduced entanglement of each pair, measured by concurrence, represents the weight of the corresponding edge in the graph. We also use the concept of tripartite and quadripartite concurrences as a proper measure of global entanglement of the states. In this case a circle including the graph indicates the presence of global entanglement.