Duality and the geometric measure of entanglement of general multiqubit W states

We find the nearest product states for arbitrary generalized W states of n qubits, and show that the nearest product state is essentially unique if the W state is highly entangled. It is specified by a unit vector in Euclidean n-dimensional space. We use this duality between unit vectors and highly entangled W states to find the geometric measure of entanglement of such states.