Recently, a genuine four-qubit entangled state ${\mid {\chi }^{00}⟩}_{3214}$ has been proposed [Y. Yeo and W. K. Chua, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 060502 (2006)]. This state has many interesting entanglement properties and possible applications in quantum information processing and fundamental tests of quantum physics. Here we present a simple scheme for generating such a state in an ion-trap system. We also demonstrate how to discriminate between the 16 basis states $\{{\mid {\chi }^{ij}⟩}_{3214}={\sigma }_3^i{\sigma }_1^j{\mid {\chi }^{00}⟩}_{3214},i,j=0,1,2,3\}$.

• Received 5 April 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.78.024301