Few-body precursors of topological frustration

Quantum spin chains - the prototypical model for coupled two-level systems - offer a fertile playground both for fundamental and technological applications, ranging from the theory of thermalization to quantum computation. The effects of frustration induced by the boundary conditions have recently been addressed in this context. In this work, we analyze the effects of such frustration on a few spin system and we comment the strong even-odd effects induced in the ground state energy. The purpose of this work is to show that such signatures are visible on current quantum computer platforms.