Quantcast
  • Register
PhysicsOverflow is a next-generation academic platform for physicists and astronomers, including a community peer review system and a postgraduate-level discussion forum analogous to MathOverflow.

Welcome to PhysicsOverflow! PhysicsOverflow is an open platform for community peer review and graduate-level Physics discussion.

Please help promote PhysicsOverflow ads elsewhere if you like it.

News

PO is now at the Physics Department of Bielefeld University!

New printer friendly PO pages!

Migration to Bielefeld University was successful!

Please vote for this year's PhysicsOverflow ads!

Please do help out in categorising submissions. Submit a paper to PhysicsOverflow!

... see more

Tools for paper authors

Submit paper
Claim Paper Authorship

Tools for SE users

Search User
Reclaim SE Account
Request Account Merger
Nativise imported posts
Claim post (deleted users)
Import SE post

Users whose questions have been imported from Physics Stack Exchange, Theoretical Physics Stack Exchange, or any other Stack Exchange site are kindly requested to reclaim their account and not to register as a new user.

Public \(\beta\) tools

Report a bug with a feature
Request a new functionality
404 page design
Send feedback

Attributions

(propose a free ad)

Site Statistics

205 submissions , 163 unreviewed
5,047 questions , 2,200 unanswered
5,345 answers , 22,709 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
816 active unimported users
More ...

  Has anyone actually produced any braided anyons (quasi-particles) yet? (quantum computer)

+ 6 like - 0 dislike
686 views

Quasiparticles theoretically can form braids on a 2D surface. The braids apparently are quite stable for reasonably long periods, allowing a superposition state more time before it decoheres through environmental interaction. This would be a big step in quantum computing. Has this actually been achieved or is it theory only at this point?

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-01 17:33 (UCT), posted by SE-user Gordon
asked Feb 23, 2011 in Experimental Physics by Gordon W. (30 points) [ no revision ]
Assuming anyons exist in fractional quantum Hall states (see Deepak's answer and its comments for very good theoretical and experimental reasons that they do), anybody who has made a fractional quantum Hall system has indeed created braided anyons. We are still quite far from actually being able to dynamically braid the anyons, or even definitively experimentally observe the anyons, both of which, in some form, are necessary to do quantum computation (topological quantum computation by measurement gets around actually having to braid the anyons, but in some sense it braids them virtually).

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-01 17:33 (UCT), posted by SE-user Peter Shor

1 Answer

+ 3 like - 0 dislike

So far non-abelian quasiparticles have yet to be observed in quantum hall states. However, as far as theory is concerned, in a recent paper a rigorous proof is provided that such quasiparticles do exist in quantum hall states. There were many candidate states for this object, starting with the Moore-Read state, however, theoretically there did not yet exist a complete proof of their existence.

This is a really big achievement. Frank Wilzcek describes it as "a landmark proof".

There have been various incompletely verified "sightings" of the $5/2$ state which is the non-abelian state. For results upto 2008 at least, see the RMP paper on topological quantum computation. At the end of this paper various references are given which claim to have observed this state. I don't know what the latest is, but I would have heard of an definitive experimental observation, or so I like to think :)

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-01 17:33 (UCT), posted by SE-user user346
answered Feb 23, 2011 by Deepak Vaid (1,985 points) [ no revision ]
Not super recent, but perhaps you're aware of Bob Willett's experiments (0911.0345 and 0807.0221)? Not a smoking gun by any means, but cute and very encouraging.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-01 17:33 (UCT), posted by SE-user wsc
Thanks for pointing those out.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-04-01 17:33 (UCT), posted by SE-user user346

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.
Live preview (may slow down editor)   Preview
Your name to display (optional):
Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.
Anti-spam verification:
If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$y$\varnothing$icsOverflow
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).
Please complete the anti-spam verification




user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights
...