Non-Abelian anyon collider

Abstract

A collider where particles are injected onto a beam splitter from opposite sides has been used for identifying quantum statistics of identical particles. The collision leads to bunching of the particles for bosons and antibunching for fermions. In recent experiments, a collider was applied to a fractional quantum Hall regime hosting Abelian anyons. The observed negative cross-correlation of electrical currents cannot be understood with fermionic antibunching. Here we predict, based on a conformal field theory and a non-perturbative treatment of non-equilibrium anyon injection, that the collider provides a tool for observation of the braiding statistics of various Abelian and non-Abelian anyons. Its dominant process is not direct collision between injected anyons, contrary to common expectation, but braiding between injected anyons and an anyon excited at the collider. The dependence of the resulting negative cross-correlation on the injection currents distinguishes non-Abelian SU(2)_k anyons, Ising anyons, and Abelian Laughlin anyons.

Colliders are used to probe particles’ quantum statistical properties. Now, a theoretical proposal for a collider for anyons (a type of topological quasiparticles occurring in 2D systems) is reported, which can be used to explore the braiding statistics of various Abelian and non-Abelian anyons.