One of the hallmarks of quantum statistics, tightly entwined with the concept of topological phases of matter, is the prediction of anyons. Here, the authors introduce a simple quantum impurity model, where bosonic or fermionic impurities turn into anyons as a consequence of their interaction with the surrounding bath. This model opens up simple numerical approaches to investigate the spectra of many anyons. More importantly, the model paves the way towards realizing anyons using impurities in standard condensed matter systems, such as crystal lattices and ultracold gases.
One of the hallmarks of quantum statistics, tightly entwined with the concept of topological phases of matter, is the prediction of anyons. Here, the authors introduce a simple quantum impurity model, where bosonic or fermionic impurities turn into anyons as a consequence of their interaction with the surrounding bath. This model opens up simple numerical approaches to investigate the spectra of many anyons. More importantly, the model paves the way towards realizing anyons using impurities in standard condensed matter systems, such as crystal lattices and ultracold gases.
Studies on the experimental realization of two-dimensional anyons in terms of quasiparticles have been restricted, so far, to only anyons on the plane. It is known, however, that the geometry and topology of space can have significant effects on quantum statistics for particles moving on it. Here, we have undertaken the first step toward realizing the emerging fractional statistics for particles restricted to move on the sphere instead of on the plane. We show that such a model arises naturally in the context of quantum impurity problems. In particular, we demonstrate a setup in which the lowest-energy spectrum of two linear bosonic or fermionic molecules immersed in a quantum many-particle environment can coincide with the anyonic spectrum on the sphere. This paves the way toward the experimental realization of anyons on the sphere using molecular impurities. Furthermore, since a change in the alignment of the molecules corresponds to the exchange of the particles on the sphere, such a realization reveals a novel type of exclusion principle for molecular impurities, which could also be of use as a powerful technique to measure the statistics parameter. Finally, our approach opens up a simple numerical route to investigate the spectra of many anyons on the sphere. Accordingly, we present the spectrum of two anyons on the sphere in the presence of a Dirac monopole field.
Anyons are low-dimensional quasiparticles that obey fractional statistics, hence interpolating between bosons and fermions. In two dimensions, they exist as elementary excitations of fractional quantum Hall states and they are believed to enable topological quantum computing. One-dimensional (1D) anyons have been theoretically proposed, but their experimental realization has proven to be difficult. Here, we observe anyonic correlations, which emerge through the phenomenon of spin-charge separation, in a 1D strongly-interacting quantum gas. The required spin degree of freedom is provided by a mobile impurity, whose effective anyonic correlations are associated with an experimentally tunable statistical angle. These anyonic correlations are measured by monitoring the impurity momentum distribution, whose asymmetric feature demonstrates the transmutation of bosons via anyons to fermions. Going beyond equilibrium conditions, we study the dynamical properties of the anyonic correlations via dynamical fermionization of the anyons. Our work opens up the door to the exploration of non-equilibrium anyonic phenomena in a highly controllable setting.
Anyons emerge as elementary excitations in low-dimensional quantum systems and exhibit behavior distinct from bosons or fermions. In one dimension, anyons can arise from unconventional scattering processes or density-dependent hopping on a lattice. Here, we introduce a novel framework for realizing anyonic correlations using the internal degrees of freedom of a spinor quantum gas. We propose a "swap" model, which assigns a complex phase factor to the swapping processes between two different species, referred to as "host particles" and "impurities." The anyonic characteristics are demonstrated through the one-body correlator of the impurity, using a spin-charge separation analysis. The impurity plays the role of both creating and directly probing the anyonic correlations in a quantum many-body system, which are not accessible in the conventional anyon-Hubbard model. For a single impurity, our framework can be effectively implemented by applying tilt potentials in a strongly interacting quantum gas [Dhar et al., Observing anyonization of bosons in a quantum gas, Nature (London) 642, 53 (2025).NATUAS0028-083610.1038/s41586-025-09016-9]. We further explore the dynamical properties of anyonic correlations and extend our analysis to the case of multiple impurities. Our Letter provides new avenues for engineering many-body anyonic behavior in quantum simulation platforms.
Traditionally the study of quantum mechanical ensembles was focused on the exploration of their equilibrium properties: the program has consisted of the classification of the quantum mechanical states of matter, and the identification of the striking phase transitions between them. On the other hand, questions about the out of equilibrium properties of quantum ensembles have largely remained academic until fairly recently. Particularly, the rapid technological progress in the field of atomic physics has enabled experimental demonstrations of nontrivial out of equilibrium phenomena which moreover are describable in terms of relatively simple theoretical models with a few parameters. Thus the time is ripe for a theoretical exploration of nonequilibrium physics. To this end, quantum impurity models offer a natural and simple starting point for studying nonequilibrium phenomena in the context of ultracold atoms, and pave the way toward the study of more complicated systems. I will discuss how the impurity-bath model offers a clean, simple realization of rich phenomenology including the dynamics of polaron formation as well as the orthogonality catastrophe, and can be engineered using dilute mixtures of cold atomic gases. Moreover I will demonstrate how impurity models are also embedded in the more complicated physics of the response of a one-dimensional system to an external perturbation, or a sudden local parameter change. Lastly, I will describe the approach to equilibrium of a more\ncomplicated system, the one dimensional Bose gas, following a sudden parameter change, and discuss some of the important questions which arise in this connection: does a quantum mechanical system thermalize? What is the appropriate asymptotic description of a nonequilibrium state? Does such a system retain a memory of its initial state?
Abstract Anyons 1,2 are low-dimensional quasiparticles that obey fractional statistics, hence interpolating between bosons and fermions. In two dimensions, they exist as elementary excitations of fractional quantum Hall states 3–5 and are believed to enable topological quantum computing 6,7 . One-dimensional anyons have been theoretically proposed, but their experimental realization has proven to be difficult. Here we observed emergent anyonic correlations in a one-dimensional strongly interacting quantum gas, resulting from the phenomenon of spin–charge separation 8–10 . A mobile impurity provides the necessary spin degree of freedom to engineer anyonic correlations in the charge sector and simultaneously acts as a probe to reveal these correlations. Starting with bosons, we tune the statistical phase to transmute bosons through anyons to fermions and observe an asymmetric momentum distribution 11–14 , a hallmark of anyonic correlations. Going beyond equilibrium conditions, we observed dynamical fermionization of the anyons 15 . This study opens the door to the exploration of non-equilibrium anyonic phenomena in a highly controllable setting 15–17 .
Recently optical lattices allow us to observe phase transition without the uncertainty posed by complex materials, and the simulations of these systems are an excellent bridge between materials-based condensed matter physics and cold atoms. In this way, the computational physics related to many-body problems have increased in importance. Using the density matrix renormalization group method, we studied a Hubbard model for anyons, which is an equivalent to a variant of the Bose-Hubbard model in which the bosonic hopping depends on the local density. This is an exact mapping between anyons and bosons in one dimension. The anyons interlope between bosons and fermions. For two anyons under particle exchange, the wave function acquires a fractional phase e iθ . We conclude that this system exhibits two phases: Mott-insulator and superfluid. We present the phase diagram for some angles. The Mott lobe increases with an increase of the statistical. We observed a reentrance phase transition for all lobes. We showed that the model studied is in the same universality class as the Bose-Hubbard model with two-body interactions.