  Decompositions of the unitary group U(n) are useful tools in quantum
information theory as they allow one to decompose unitary evolutions into local
evolutions and evolutions causing entanglement. Several recursive
decompositions have been proposed in the literature to express unitary
operators as products of simple operators with properties relevant in
entanglement dynamics. In this paper, using the concept of grading of a Lie
algebra, we cast these decompositions in a unifying scheme and show how new
recursive decompositions can be obtained. In particular, we propose a new
recursive decomposition of the unitary operator on $N$ qubits, and we give a
numerical example.
