Optimal witnesses for three-qubit entanglement from Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger symmetry

Abstract

Recently, a new type of symmetry for three-qubit quantum states was introduced, the so-called Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) symmetry. It includes the operations which leave the three-qubit standard GHZ state unchanged. This symmetry is powerful as it yields families of mixed states that are, on the one hand, complex enough from the physics point of view and, on the other hand, simple enough mathematically so that their properties can be characterized analytically. We show that by using the properties of GHZ-symmetric states it is straightforward to derive optimal witnesses for three-qubit entanglement.