A characterization of optimal entanglement witnesses

Abstract: In this paper, we present a characterization of optimal entanglement witnesses in terms of positive maps and then provide a general method of checking optimality of entanglement witnesses. Applying it, we obtain new indecomposable optimal witnesses which have no spanning property. These also provide new examples which support a recent conjecture saying that the so-called structural physical approximations to optimal positive maps (optimal entanglement witnesses) give entanglement breaking maps (separable states).