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Abstract

Ordering and classifying multipartite quantum states by their entanglement content remains an open problem. One class of highly entangled states, useful in quantum information protocols, the absolutely maximally entangled (AME) ones, are especially hard to compare as all their subsystems are maximally random. While it is well known that there is no AME state of four qubits, many analytical examples and numerically generated ensembles of four-qutrit AME states are known. However, we prove the surprising result that there is truly only one AME state of four qutrits up to local unitary equivalence. In contrast, for larger local dimensions, the number of local unitary classes of AME states is shown to be infinite. Of special interest is the case of local dimension 6, where it was established recently that a four-party AME state does exist, providing a quantum solution to the classically impossible Euler problem of 36 officers. Based on this, an infinity of quantum solutions are constructed, and we prove that these are not equivalent. The methods developed can be usefully generalized to multipartite states of any number of particles.