We propose a scheme for classifying the entanglement of a tripartite pure qubit state. This classification scheme consists of an ordered list of seven elements. These elements are the Cayley hyper-determinant, and its six associated 2 × 2 subdeterminants. In particular we show that this classification provides a necessary and sufficient condition for separability.

A triple system is cancellative if no three of its distinct edges satisfy A ∪ B = A ∪ C. It is tripartite if it has a vertex partition into three parts such that every edge has exactly one point in each part. It is easy to see that every tripartite triple system is cancellative. We prove that almost all cancellative triple systems with vertex set [n] are tripartite. This sharpens a theorem of N...