Filtering states with total spin on a quantum computer

Abstract

Starting from a general wave function described on a set of spins/qubits, we propose several quantum algorithms to extract the components of this state on eigenstates of the total spin ${\bf S}^2$ and its azimuthal projection $S_z$. The method plays the role of total spin projection and gives access to the amplitudes of the initial state on a total spin basis. The different algorithms have various degrees of sophistication depending on the requested tasks. They can either solely project onto the subspace with good total spin or completely uplift the degeneracy in this subspace. After each measurement, the state collapses to one of the spin eigenstates that could be used for post-processing. For this reason, we call the method Total Quantum Spin filtering (TQSf). Possible applications ranging from many-body physics to random number generators are discussed.