It is shown that while entanglement ensures difficulty in discriminating a set of mutually orthogonal states perfectly by local operations and classical communication (LOCC), entanglement content does not. In particular, for a class of entangled multiqubit states, the maximum number of perfectly LOCC distinguishable orthogonal states is shown to be independent of the average entanglement of the states, and the spatial configuration with respect to which LOCC operations may be carried out. It is also pointed out that for this class, the makeup of an ensemble, that is whether it consists only of entangled states or not, determines the maximum number of perfectly distinguishable states.

• Received 22 April 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.81.022327