Maximally multipartite entangled states

We introduce the notion of maximally multipartite entangled states of $n$ qubits as a generalization of the bipartite case. These pure states have a bipartite entanglement that does not depend on the bipartition and is maximal for all possible bipartitions. They are solutions of a minimization problem. Examples for small $n$ are investigated, both analytically and numerically.