Entangled States of N Identical Particles

Abstract

We explore the connection between quantum entanglement and the exchange symmetry of the states of N identical particles. Each particle has n-levels. The N particles span the nN dimensional Hilbert space. We shall call the general state of the particle as a qunit. The direct product of the N qunit space is given a decomposition in terms of states with definite permutation symmetry that are found to have a measure of entanglement which is related to the representation of the permutation group. The maximally entangled states are generated from the linear combinations of fully correlated but unentangled states. The states of lower entanglement are generated from the manifold of partially correlated states. The degree of exchange symmetry is found to be related to a group theoretical measure of entanglement. Email: [e-mail], [e-mail] Email: [e-mail]