Optimal Entanglement Witnesses for Qubits and Qutrits

We study the connection between the Hilbert-Schmidt measure of entanglement (that is the minimal distance of an entangled state to the set of separable states) and entanglement witness in terms of a generalized Bell inequality which distinguishes between entangled and separable states. A method for checking the nearest separable state to a given entangled one is presented. We illustrate the general results by considering isotropic states, in particular 2-qubit and 2-qutrit states -- and their generalizations to arbitrary dimensions -- where we calculate the optimal entanglement witnesses explicitly.