  A collection of orthonormal bases for a complex dXd Hilbert space is called
mutually unbiased (MUB) if for any two vectors v and w from different bases the
square of the inner product equals 1/d: |<v,w>| ^{2}=1/d. The MUB problem is to
prove or disprove the the existence of a maximal set of d+1 bases. It has been
shown in [W. K. Wootters, B. D. Fields, Annals of Physics, 191, no. 2, 363-381,
(1989)] that such a collection exists if d is a power of a prime number p. We
revisit this problem and use dX d generalizations of the Pauli spin matrices to
give a constructive proof of this result. Specifically we give explicit
representations of commuting families of unitary matrices whose eigenvectors
solve the MUB problem. Additionally we give formulas from which the orthogonal
bases can be readily computed. We show how the techniques developed here
provide a natural way to analyze the separability of the bases. The techniques
used require properties of algebraic field extensions, and the relevant part of
that theory is included in an Appendix.
