Abstract
The emergence of non-Abelian anyons from large collections of interacting elementary particles is a conceptually beautiful phenomenon with important ramifications for fault-tolerant quantum computing. Over the last few decades the field has evolved from a highly theoretical subject to an active experimental area, particularly following proposals for trapping non-Abelian anyons in 'engineered' structures built from well-understood components. In this short overview we briefly tour the impressive progress that has taken place in the quest for the simplest type of non-Abelian anyon - defects binding Majorana zero modes - and then turn to similar strategies for pursuing more exotic excitations. Specifically, we describe how interfacing simple quantum Hall systems with conventional superconductors yields 'parafermionic' generalizations of Majorana modes and even Fibonacci anyons - the latter enabling fully fault tolerant universal quantum computation. We structure our treatment in a manner that unifies these topics in a coherent way. The ideas synthesized here spotlight largely uncharted experimental territory in the field of quantum Hall physics that appears ripe for discovery.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 014006 |
| Journal | PHYSICA SCRIPTA |
| Volume | 2015 |
| Issue number | T164 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2015 |
| Event | 156th Nobel Symposium on New Forms of Matter: Topological Insulators and Superconductors - Lidingo, Sweden Duration: 12 Jun 2014 → 15 Jun 2014 |
Funding
NSF [DMR-1341822]; Alfred P Sloan Foundation; Caltech Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at Caltech; Microsoft's Station Q; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) / ERC Project MUNATOP; US-Israel Binational Science Foundation; Minerva Foundation We are indebted to all of our collaborators on work related to non-Abelian statistics, particularly from [24, 71, 72, 74] on which much of this article is based. JA gratefully acknowledges funding from the NSF through grant DMR-1341822; the Alfred P Sloan Foundation; the Caltech Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center with support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; and the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at Caltech. AS gratefully acknowledges support from Microsoft's Station Q, the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC Project MUNATOP, the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the Minerva Foundation.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Physics and Astronomy