Anyons for anyone and everyone
Abstract:
For most of quantum physics, particles come in two varieties: fermions, the solitary particles that build matter, and bosons, the gregarious particles that mediate forces. But in the flat landscape of two dimensions, stranger possibilities emerge. Collective excitations known as anyons can carry fractional charge and obey fractional statistics. Exchange two ordinary particles and the quantum state either remains the same or changes sign; exchange two anyons, and it may instead acquire an arbitrary phase—or even turn into a different quantum state altogether. I will introduce these remarkable particles and explain how Majorana modes, a special kind of anyon, may offer a route towards error-resistant topological quantum computation. I will end with some ideas from our own work on even more exotic relatives of Majoranas called parafermions.
For most of quantum physics, particles come in two varieties: fermions, the solitary particles that build matter, and bosons, the gregarious particles that mediate forces. But in the flat landscape of two dimensions, stranger possibilities emerge. Collective excitations known as anyons can carry fractional charge and obey fractional statistics. Exchange two ordinary particles and the quantum state either remains the same or changes sign; exchange two anyons, and it may instead acquire an arbitrary phase—or even turn into a different quantum state altogether. I will introduce these remarkable particles and explain how Majorana modes, a special kind of anyon, may offer a route towards error-resistant topological quantum computation. I will end with some ideas from our own work on even more exotic relatives of Majoranas called parafermions.
All are cordially invited.
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