Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Anyon" in English language version.
The appearance of fractional statistics in the present context is strongly reminiscent of the fractional statistics introduced by Wilczek to describe charged particles tied to "magnetic flux tubes" in two dimensions.
Anyons are quasiparticles that, unlike fermions and bosons, show fractional statistics when two of them are exchanged.
Non-Abelian topological order (TO) is a coveted state of matter with remarkable properties, including quasiparticles that can remember the sequence in which they are exchanged. These anyonic excitations are promising building blocks of fault-tolerant quantum computers. However, despite extensive efforts, non-Abelian TO and its excitations have remained elusive, unlike the simpler quasiparticles or defects in Abelian TO. In this work, we present the first unambiguous realization of non-Abelian TO and demonstrate control of its anyons.
This year brought two solid confirmations of the quasiparticles. The first arrived in April, in a paper featured on the cover of Science, from a group of researchers at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris ... The second confirmation came in July, when a group at Purdue University in Indiana used an experimental setup on an etched chip that screened out interactions that might obscure the anyon behavior.
Elementary particles in three dimensions are either bosons or fermions, depending on their spin. In two dimensions, it is in principle possible to have particles that lie somewhere in between, but detecting the statistics of these so-called anyons directly is tricky.
From a physicist's point of view, having two spatial dimensions is special: a pair of particles trading places behave very differently in two dimensions than they do in three. In three dimensions, any two sets of paths taken by two identical particles in the process of exchanging their positions can be continuously morphed into one another. But in two dimensions, particles can wind around each other in two distinct ways, clockwise or anticlockwise. A profound consequence of this observation for quantum mechanics is that in two dimensions, exchanging identical particles twice is not equivalent to leaving them alone.
Simon and others have developed elaborate theories that use anyons as the platform for quantum computers. Pairs of the quasiparticle could encode information in their memory of how they have circled around one another. And because the fractional statistics is 'topological' – it depends on the number of times one anyon went around another, and not on slight changes to its path – it is unaffected by tiny perturbations. This robustness could make topological quantum computers easier to scale up than are current quantum-computing technologies, which are error-prone.
In the early 1980s I named the hypothetical new particles 'anyons', the idea being that anything goes – but I did not lose much sleep anticipating their discovery. Very soon afterwards, however, Bert Halperin at Harvard University found the concept of anyons useful in understanding certain aspects of the fractional quantum Hall effect, which describes the modifications that take place in electronics at low temperatures in strong magnetic fields.
The appearance of fractional statistics in the present context is strongly reminiscent of the fractional statistics introduced by Wilczek to describe charged particles tied to "magnetic flux tubes" in two dimensions.
In 1984, two years after Wilczek discussed this seemingly arcane possibility, Bertrand Halperin (Harvard University) suggested that the excitations in the theory of fractional quantum Hall effect discussed by Robert Laughlin (Stanford University) behave like anyons. Later Wilczek, Daniel Arovas (University of California, San Diego) and Robert Schrieffer (University of California, Santa Barbara) confirmed the idea.
If there is a generalized spin-statistics connection, we must expect that the flux-tube-particle composites have unusual statistics, interpolating between bosons and fermions. Since interchange of two of these particles can give any phase, I will call them generically anyons.
Anyons are quasiparticles that, unlike fermions and bosons, show fractional statistics when two of them are exchanged.
Simon and others have developed elaborate theories that use anyons as the platform for quantum computers. Pairs of the quasiparticle could encode information in their memory of how they have circled around one another. And because the fractional statistics is 'topological' – it depends on the number of times one anyon went around another, and not on slight changes to its path – it is unaffected by tiny perturbations. This robustness could make topological quantum computers easier to scale up than are current quantum-computing technologies, which are error-prone.
The appearance of fractional statistics in the present context is strongly reminiscent of the fractional statistics introduced by Wilczek to describe charged particles tied to "magnetic flux tubes" in two dimensions.
If there is a generalized spin-statistics connection, we must expect that the flux-tube-particle composites have unusual statistics, interpolating between bosons and fermions. Since interchange of two of these particles can give any phase, I will call them generically anyons.
Anyons are quasiparticles that, unlike fermions and bosons, show fractional statistics when two of them are exchanged.
From a physicist's point of view, having two spatial dimensions is special: a pair of particles trading places behave very differently in two dimensions than they do in three. In three dimensions, any two sets of paths taken by two identical particles in the process of exchanging their positions can be continuously morphed into one another. But in two dimensions, particles can wind around each other in two distinct ways, clockwise or anticlockwise. A profound consequence of this observation for quantum mechanics is that in two dimensions, exchanging identical particles twice is not equivalent to leaving them alone.
Anyons are quasiparticles that, unlike fermions and bosons, show fractional statistics when two of them are exchanged.
Simon and others have developed elaborate theories that use anyons as the platform for quantum computers. Pairs of the quasiparticle could encode information in their memory of how they have circled around one another. And because the fractional statistics is 'topological' – it depends on the number of times one anyon went around another, and not on slight changes to its path – it is unaffected by tiny perturbations. This robustness could make topological quantum computers easier to scale up than are current quantum-computing technologies, which are error-prone.
If a fermion or a boson were dragged around another of its kind, theory suggests, the action would not produce a record of what had occurred. But because anyons alter wave functions, they would create such a record.
The work involved creating a very tiny 2-D anyon collider—so small they had to use an electron microscope to observe the action inside of it. The collider consisted of a 2-D plane set between another layered material. More specifically, the collider held a quantum Hall liquid that was kept inside of a strong magnetic field.
One characteristic difference between fermions and bosons is how the particles act when they are looped, or braided, around each other. Fermions respond in one straightforward way, and bosons in another expected and straightforward way. Anyons respond as if they have a fractional charge, and even more interestingly, create a nontrivial phase change as they braid around one another. This can give the anyons a type of "memory" of their interaction.
In the early 1980s I named the hypothetical new particles 'anyons', the idea being that anything goes – but I did not lose much sleep anticipating their discovery. Very soon afterwards, however, Bert Halperin at Harvard University found the concept of anyons useful in understanding certain aspects of the fractional quantum Hall effect, which describes the modifications that take place in electronics at low temperatures in strong magnetic fields.
In 2016, three physicists described an experimental setup that resembles a tiny particle collider in two dimensions. Fève and his colleagues built something similar and used it to smash anyons together. By measuring the fluctuations of the currents in the collider, they were able to show that the behavior of the anyons corresponds exactly with theoretical predictions.
They were first proposed in the late 1970s, but direct experimental evidence of their quantum statistics hasn't been conclusively shown until now.
Simon and others have developed elaborate theories that use anyons as the platform for quantum computers. Pairs of the quasiparticle could encode information in their memory of how they have circled around one another. And because the fractional statistics is 'topological' – it depends on the number of times one anyon went around another, and not on slight changes to its path – it is unaffected by tiny perturbations. This robustness could make topological quantum computers easier to scale up than are current quantum-computing technologies, which are error-prone.
Anyons are quasiparticles that, unlike fermions and bosons, show fractional statistics when two of them are exchanged.
In 1982 physicist Frank Wilczek gave these interstitial particles the name anyon ... 'Any anyon can be anything between a boson or a fermion', Keilmann says. 'Wilczek is a funny guy.'
If there is a generalized spin-statistics connection, we must expect that the flux-tube-particle composites have unusual statistics, interpolating between bosons and fermions. Since interchange of two of these particles can give any phase, I will call them generically anyons.
In the early 1980s I named the hypothetical new particles 'anyons', the idea being that anything goes – but I did not lose much sleep anticipating their discovery. Very soon afterwards, however, Bert Halperin at Harvard University found the concept of anyons useful in understanding certain aspects of the fractional quantum Hall effect, which describes the modifications that take place in electronics at low temperatures in strong magnetic fields.
Anyons are quasiparticles that, unlike fermions and bosons, show fractional statistics when two of them are exchanged.
