Both the drift and local control commute with , so at every time. The propagator consequently obeys , as follows by differentiating this expression. Thus every reachable unitary operator preserves the magnetization sectors of a spin chain. If is a spectral projector of , then commutes with and .
The eigenspaces are nontrivial proper subspaces: has eigenvalue , while has eigenvalue . One cannot transfer the first pure state to the second, although their density operators have the same spectrum. Nor can one implement a unitary that mixes these two sectors. Hence . Its Dynamical Lie algebra lies in the block-diagonal commutant of . Controllability within a fixed sector, such as the single-excitation subspace, is still possible and must be tested separately.
Use the computational basis ordered as . Since and ,
For arbitrary , a computational basis vector with ones has contributions and contributions , giving eigenvalue . All occur, so
The binomial coefficient counts which sites are excited. Thus there are exactly distinct magnetization sectors of a spin chain, and their dimensions sum to , the full Hilbert-space dimension.