Inductive entanglement classification of four qubits under stochastic local operations and classical communication

Using an inductive approach to classify multipartite entangled states under stochastic local operations and classical communication introduced recently by the authors [Phys. Rev. A 74, 052336 (2006)], we give the complete classification of four-qubit entangled pure states. Apart from the expected degenerate classes, we show that there exist eight inequivalent ways to entangle four qubits. In this respect, permutation symmetry is taken into account and states with a structure differing only by parameters inside a continuous set are considered to belong to the same class. © 2007 The American Physical Society.