We develop a full characterization of abelian quantum statistics on graphs. We explain how the number of anyon phases is related to connectivity. For 2-connected graphs the independence of quantum statistics with respect to the number of particles is proven. For non-planar 3-connected graphs we identify bosons and fermions as the only possible statistics, whereas for planar 3-connected graphs we show that one anyon phase exists. Our approach also yields an alternative proof of the structure theorem for the first homology group of n -particle graph configuration spaces. Finally, we determine the topological gauge potentials for 2-connected graphs.
We develop a full characterization of abelian quantum statistics on graphs. We explain how the number of anyon phases is related to connectivity. For 2-connected graphs the independence of quantum statistics with respect to the number of particles is proven. For non-planar 3-connected graphs we identify bosons and fermions as the only possible statistics, whereas for planar 3-connected graphs we show that one anyon phase exists. Our approach also yields an alternative proof of the structure theorem for the first homology group of n -particle graph configuration spaces. Finally, we determine the topological gauge potentials for 2-connected graphs.
Abstract We show that non-abelian quantum statistics can be studied using certain topological invariants which are the homology groups of configuration spaces. In particular, we formulate a general framework for describing quantum statistics of particles constrained to move in a topological spaceX. The framework involves a study of isomorphism classes of flat complex vector bundles over the configuration space ofXwhich can be achieved by determining its homology groups. We apply this methodology for configuration spaces of graphs. As a conclusion, we provide families of graphs which are good candidates for studying simple effective models of anyon dynamics as well as models of non-abelian anyons on networks that are used in quantum computing. These conclusions are based on our solution of the so-called universal presentation problem for homology groups of graph configuration spaces for certain families of graphs.
Abstract We introduce the idea of the path integral and use it to study the properties of identical particles under exhange. We explain why the topology of paths through space-time, the fundamental group of the configuration space (the braid group in 2+1 dimensions and the permutation group in 3+1 dimensions) determines the possible particle types. We argue that in 3+1 dimensions one only has bosons and fermions but in 2+1 dimensions other particles, known as anyons, can exist. We describe both the abelian and nonabelian type of anyon and argue why nonabelian anyons could be useful for quantum computation. We introduce the notion of the “quantum dimension” of an anyon which describes the size of the many anyon Hilbert space.
As opposed to classical mechanics, quantum mechanical particles can be truly identical and lead to new and interesting phenomena. Identical particles can be of different types, determined by their exchange symmetry, which in turn gives rise to statistical repulsion. The exchange symmetry is given by a representation of the exchange group; the fundamental group of the configuration space of identical particles. In three dimensions the exchange group is the permutation group and there are only two types of identical particles; bosons and fermions. While any number of bosons can be at the same place or in the same state, fermions repel each other. In two dimensions the exchange group is the braid group and essentially any exchange symmetry is allowed, such particles are called anyons. Abelian anyons are described by abelian representations of the exchange group and can be seen as giving a continuous interpolation between bosons and fermions. Non-abelian anyons are much more complex and their statistical repulsion is yet largely unexplored. We use the framework of modular tensor categories to show how the statistical repulsion of non-abelian anyons depends on the exchange symmetry. The Fibonacci anyon model is studied, for which explicit results are obtained. We also show how Fibonacci anyons can be used to implement topological quantum computation, providing topologically stable quantum information encoded in the state of non-abelian anyons that can be manipulated via the non-abelian exchange symmetry.
"Anyonic quantum statistics is an exotic phenomenon of identical particles in quantum mechanics. When particles are confined in two spatial dimensions, exchanges of identical particles can induce phase factors in the wave function of Abelian anyons or matrix valued transformations of the wave function of non-Abelian anyons. As a result, systems of anyons may have richer properties than those of bosons and fermions in three spatial dimensions. There is strong theoretical support for the existence of anyons in some engineered two-dimensional systems such as 2D electron gases, strongly correlated spin lattices and as edge modes of nanowires. In the future, anyons could be used in topological quantum computation to perform highly efficient information processing with very small error rates. The phases of matter described by dynamically interacting anyons have recently been studied in chains where anyons interact via Heisenberg-type exchange interactions. In this thesis, new kind of anyonic interactions are studied, induced purely by braiding during free evolution. Such interactions are of topological origin, and the information about the interactions is stored non-locally. A quantum walk model is used to study the effects of these braiding interactions on the dynamical behaviour of anyons. The anyonic quantum walk is a quasi-one-dimensional generalization of the discrete-time quantum walk which allows the simulation of anyonic dynamics analytically. The moving anyon and a chain of stationary anyons interact via braiding statistics, and the behaviour of the anyon is studied in three cases. Striking differences are found between particles with conventional boson or fermion statistics and non-Abelian anyonic statistics. The random walk is a dynamical model that describes the motion of a particle on a lattice. In physics, it is used to describe Brownian motion of fluids and gases. In such systems, energy transport is diffusive, and the order of the system approaches a highly mixed state without any information content. The quantum version of the random walk, the quantum walk, has nonintuitive properties. Generally, the information content in a unitarily evolving system is fixed, which leads to unexpected transport phenomena. An initially localized particle does not propagate diffusively, but escapes the starting point with ballistic speed. Most of our results for non-Abelian anyons use the Ising model anyon which is most likely to be measured in experiments. First, when each anyonic site is occupied by one Ising anyon, the propagation of the anyon becomes diffusive. More precisely, the variance of the spatial probability distribution of the particle depends linearly on the number of time steps. This is in stark contrast to bosons, fermions and Abelian anyons which propagate ballistically, and the variance depends linearly on the square of the number of time steps. The essential reason for this slowdown is that the non-Abelian anyons possess an extra degree of freedom called the fusion Hilbert space. This space can be viewed as an environment for the normal degrees of freedom of the particle, inducing decoherence in the quantum walk. This thesis opens the line for studies of this novel kind of decoherence mechanism in quantum walks. In the second case the study is extended to more general anyon models by losing some of the information about the history of the evolution. In this case the system is subject to decoherence, and the total system evolution is not unitary. The behaviour of the particle in this model is found to be diffusive for all the non-Abelian anyon models studied, while Abelian anyons behave ballistically also in this model. One peculiarity of quantum systems is their behaviour under disorder. Quantum mechanical particles moving in random local potentials are known to freeze and not move at all. Such a phenomenon is known as Anderson localization. Studies have shown that Anderson localization happens also in quantum walks with random spatial fluctuations in the coin parameters. In the third case, the transport properties of anyons are studied under topological randomness, allowing the occupations of anyons change between experiments. Bosons and fermions would propagate ballistically under such randomness, and Abelian anyons are shown to localize. The results show that non-Abelian anyons behave diffusively at short time scales, and it is argued that they do so in the long time limit as well. In all cases, non-Abelian anyons are shown to have very different dynamical properties than bosons, fermions and Abelian anyons. A possible simulation of the anyonic quantum walk in Fractional Quantum Hall systems is also discussed.
Abstract Graphs are topological spaces that include broader objects than discretized manifolds, making them interesting playgrounds for the study of quantum phases not realized by symmetry breaking. In particular they are known to support anyons of an even richer variety than the two-dimensional space. We explore this possibility by building a class of frustration-free and gapped Hamiltonians based on discrete abelian gauge groups. The resulting models have a ground state degeneracy that can be either a topological invariant, an extensive quantity or a mixture of the two. For two basis of the degenerate ground states which are complementary in quantum theory, the entanglement entropy (EE) is exactly computed. The result for one basis has a constant global term, known as the topological EE, implying long-range entanglement. On the other hand, the topological EE vanishes in the result for the other basis. Comparisons are made with similar occurrences in the toric code. We analyze excitations and identify anyon-like excitations that account for the topological EE. An analogy between the ground states of this system and the θ -vacuum for a U (1) gauge theory on a circle is also drawn.
The standard topological approach to indistinguishable particles formulates exchange statistics by using the fundamental group to analyze the connectedness of the configuration space. Although successful in two and more dimensions, this approach gives only trivial or near-trivial exchange statistics in one dimension because two-body coincidences are excluded from configuration space. Instead, we include these path-ambiguous singular points and consider configuration space as an orbifold. This orbifold topological approach allows unified analysis of exchange statistics in any dimension and predicts possibilities for anyons in one-dimensional systems, including non-Abelian anyons obeying alternate strand groups. These results clarify the nontopological origin of fractional statistics in one-dimensional anyon models.