Particles with unusual properties called anyons have long been sought after as a potential building block for advanced quantum computers, and now researchers have found one – using a quantum computer
The anyon is unlike any other particle we know because it keeps a kind of record of where it has been. Normally, repeatedly swapping particles like an electron or a photon renders them completely exchangeable, making it impossible to tell the swap has taken place.
But in the 1970s, physicists realised this wasn’t the case for certain quasiparticles that can only exist in two dimensions, which they dubbed anyons. Quasiparticles, as the name suggests, aren’t true particles, but rather collective vibrations that behave as if they are particles.Unlike other particles, swapping anyons fundamentally changes them, with the number of swaps influencing the way they vibrate.
This inherent memory, and the quasiparticles’ quantum nature, make non-Abelian anyons an attractive way to do quantum computing, but they had never been found experimentally.at quantum computing firm Quantinuum and his colleagues say they have done just that. The researchers developed a new quantum processor, called H2, which uses ytterbium and barium ions trapped using magnetic fields and lasers to create qubits, or quantum bits, the basic building block of a quantum computer.
They then entangled these qubits in a formation called a Kagome lattice, a pattern of interlocking stars common in traditional woven Japanese baskets. This gave the qubits identical quantum mechanical properties to those predicted for anyons and, when the team adjusted the interactions between the qubits in a way that was equivalent to moving the anyons around, they could test for and confirm the distinctive swap-dependent changes to the anyons’ properties.
“This is the first convincing test that’s been able to do that, so this would be the first case of what you would call non-Abelian topological order,” says
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