We now prove Ad is indeed a symmetry by induction.

The commutator [Ad , Hd ] is given

by
i i i
!
Sd Sd
e2 Ad 1 (Cd 1 )
1 e 2 Cd 1 Ad 1 e 2 Sd [Ad 1 , Hd 1 ]
i
Sd i
Sd i . (4.9)
e 2 [Ad 1 , Hd 1] e 2 Ad 1 Cd 1 e 2 Sd (Cd 1 ) 1A
n 1

By induction hypothesis [Ad 1 , Hd 1 ] = 0 which is satisfied for d = 2 because H1 = A1 = 1 ,

so we only have to worry about the diagonal blocks. We remind the readers that Cd 1 is
diagonal and Ad 1 is anti-diagonal, so their product is anti-diagonal. So let us look at the
only matrix elements that are possibly nonzero:
h i i h i i
e 2 Sd Ad 1 (Cd 1 ) 1 d 1
e 2
Sd
C A
d 1 d 1 d 1
k,2 +1 k k,2 +1 k
i 1 i
Sd Sd
=e 2 [Ad 1 ]k,2d 1 +1 k [Cd 1 ] 2d 1 +1 k,2d 1 +1 k e 2 [Cd 1 ]kk [Ad 1 ]k,2d 1 +1 k
i
⇣ ⌘
Sd 1 i Sd
=e 2 [Ad 1 ]k,2d 1 +1 k [Cd 1 ]2d 1 +1 k,2d 1 +1 k e [Cd 1 ]kk [Cd 1 ] 2d 1 +1 k,2d 1 +1 k

=0,

where for the last equality we used equation (2.9) and this completes the proof.
Since the symmetry operator is an anti-diagonal matrix, an orthogonal set of eigenvectors
is given by (0, · · · , 0, bk , 0, . . . , 0, ±b2d +1 k , 0, · · · , 0), where the bk are the anti-diagonal matrix
elements. For the symmetry operator Ad we have that b2d +1 k = b⇤k . These eigenvectors can
be used to construct the unitary matrix that brings the Hamiltonian into a block-diagonal
form where the two blocks correspond to the ±1 eigenvalues of Ad . For our numerical results
to be discussed below, we block-diagonalize the Hamiltonian this way.
We can also discuss the magnetic inversion symmetry in the tensor product representa-
tion. If we define the unitary Hermitian 2 ⇥ 2 matrix
! !
0 e i 2 Sd 01
Kd := , K1 := 1 = , (4.10)
e i 2 Sd 0 10

then it is clear from equation (4.7) that the magnetic inversion can be written as

Ad = K d ⌦ K d 1 ⌦ · · · ⌦ K1 . (4.11)

We can check that

1
Kd x Kd
d,~ = xc ,
d,~
1
Kd ⇢xk Kd = ⇢xck , (4.12)

where xck = 1 xk and ~x c = (xc1 , xc2 . . . , xcd ), as defined in equation (4.3). Now we can prove
Ad Hd Ad 1 = Hd from induction again: the inductive hypothesis takes care of the first term

–9–