Geometry of entanglement and separability in Hilbert subspaces of dimension up to three

Abstract We present a complete classification of the geometry of the mutually complementary sets of entangled and separable states in three-dimensional Hilbert subspaces of bipartite and multipartite quantum systems. Our analysis begins by finding the geometric structure of the pure product states in a given three-dimensional Hilbert subspace, which determines all the possible separable and entangled mixed states over the same subspace. In bipartite systems, we characterise the 14 possible qualitatively different geometric shapes for the set of separable states in any three-dimensional Hilbert subspace (5 classes which also appear in two-dimensional subspaces and were found and analysed by Boyer et al. (Phys Rev A 95:032308, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.95.032308 ), and 9 novel classes which appear only in three-dimensional subspaces), describe their geometries, and provide figures illustrating them. We also generalise these results to characterise the sets of fully separable states (and hence the complementary sets of somewhat entangled states) in three-dimensional subspaces of multipartite systems. Our results show which geometrical forms quantum entanglement can and cannot take in low-dimensional subspaces.