Correlation and Entanglement of Multipartite States

Abstract: We derive a classification and a measure of classical- and quantum-correlation of multipartite qubit, qutrit, and in general, $n$-level systems, in terms of SU$(n)$ representations of density matrices. We compare the measure for the case of bipartite correlation with concurrence and the entropy of entanglement. The characterization of correlation is in terms of the number of nonzero singular values of the correlation matrix, but that of mixed state entanglement requires additional invariant parameters in the density matrix. For the bipartite qubit case, the condition for mixed state entanglement is written explicitly in terms of the invariant paramters in the density matrix. For identical particle systems we analyze the effects of exchange symmetry on classical and quantum correlation.