Dicke states represent a class of multipartite entangled states that can be generated experimentally with many applications in quantum information. We propose a method to experimentally detect genuine multipartite entanglement in the vicinity of arbitrary Dicke states. The detection scheme can be used to experimentally quantify the entanglement depth of many-body systems and is easy to implement as it requires measurement of only three collective spin operators. The detection criterion is strong as it heralds multipartite entanglement even in cases where the state fidelity goes down exponentially with the number of qubits.

• Received 28 July 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.180502