Genuine multipartite entanglement without multipartite correlations

Abstract

Nonclassical correlations between measurement results make entanglement the essence of quantum physics and the main resource for quantum information applications. Surprisingly, there are n-particle states which do not exhibit n-partite correlations at all but still are genuinely n-partite entangled. We introduce a general construction principle for such states, implement them in a multiphoton experiment and analyze their properties in detail. Remarkably, even without multipartite correlations, these states do violate Bell inequalities showing that there is no classical, i.e., local realistic model describing their properties.