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arXiv:2102.02072 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Tracing non-Abelian anyons via impurity particles

Niccolò Baldelli, Bruno Juliá-Díaz, Utso Bhattacharya, Maciej Lewenstein, Tobias Graß

Published Jul 16, 2021• 21 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Non-Abelian excitations are an interesting feature of many fractional quantum Hall phases, including those phases described by the Moore-Read (or Pfaffian) wave function. However, the detection of the non-Abelian quasiparticles is challenging. Here, we consider a system described by the Moore-Read wave function and assume that impurity particles bind to its quasiholes. Then, the angular momentum of the impurities, reflected also by the impurity density, provides a useful witness of the physics of the non-Abelian excitations. By demanding that the impurities are constrained to the lowest Landau level, we are able to write down the corresponding many-body wave function describing both the Moore-Read liquid and the impurities. Through Monte Carlo sampling, we determine the impurity angular momentum, and we show that it suggests a quantum-statistical parameter $\ensuremath{\alpha}=a\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{-}b+P/2$ for the quasiholes, where $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ ranges from 0 for bosons to 1 for fermions. A reasonable agreement with the Monte Carlo results is obtained for $a=1/4$, $b=1/8$, and $P=0,1$ depending on the parity of the particle number in the Moore-Read liquid. This parity dependence of the angular momentum serves as an unambiguous demonstration of the non-Abelian nature of the excitations. In addition to the studies of excitations in the Moore-Read liquid, we also apply our scheme to Laughlin liquids, for which we focus on interacting bosonic impurities. With this, the impurities themselves form Laughlin states, which allows for a study of hierarchical fractional quantum Hall states.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.104.035133

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Non-Abelian excitations are an interesting feature of many fractional quantum Hall phases, including those phases described by the Moore-Read (or Pfaffian) wave function. However, the detection of the non-Abelian quasiparticles is challenging. Here, we consider a system described by the Moore-Read wave function and assume that impurity particles bind to its quasiholes. Then, the angular momentum of the impurities, reflected also by the impurity density, provides a useful witness of the physics of the non-Abelian excitations. By demanding that the impurities are constrained to the lowest Landau level, we are able to write down the corresponding many-body wave function describing both the Moore-Read liquid and the impurities. Through Monte Carlo sampling, we determine the impurity angular momentum, and we show that it suggests a quantum-statistical parameter \ensuremathα=a\ensuremathν\ensuremath−b+P/2\ensuremath{\alpha}=a\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{-}b+P/2\ensuremathα=a\ensuremathν\ensuremath−b+P/2 for the quasiholes, where \ensuremathα\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremathα ranges from 0 for bosons to 1 for fermions. A reasonable agreement with the Monte Carlo results is obtained for a=1/4a=1/4a=1/4, b=1/8b=1/8b=1/8, and P=0,1P=0,1P=0,1 depending on the parity of the particle number in the Moore-Read liquid. This parity dependence of the angular momentum serves as an unambiguous demonstration of the non-Abelian nature of the excitations. In addition to the studies of excitations in the Moore-Read liquid, we also apply our scheme to Laughlin liquids, for which we focus on interacting bosonic impurities. With this, the impurities themselves form Laughlin states, which allows for a study of hierarchical fractional quantum Hall states.
The elementary excitations of a fractional quantum Hall liquid are quasiparticles or quasiholes that are neither bosons nor fermions, but are so-called anyons. Here we study impurity particles immersed in a quantum Hall liquid that bind to the quasiholes via repulsive interactions with the liquid. We show that the angular momentum of an impurity is given by the multiple of a fractional "quantum" of angular momentum, and can directly be observed from the impurity density. In a system with several impurities bound to quasiholes, their total angular momentum interpolates between the values for free fermions and for free bosons. This interpolation is characterized by the fractional statistical parameter of the anyons, which is typically defined via their braiding behavior.
Quasiholes in certain fractional quantum Hall states are promising candidates for the experimental realization of non-Abelian anyons. They are assumed to be localized excitations, and to display non-Abelian statistics when sufficiently separated, but these properties have not been explicitly demonstrated except for the Moore-Read state. In this work, we apply the newly developed matrix product state technique to examine these exotic excitations. For the Moore-Read and the Z_{3} Read-Rezayi states, we estimate the quasihole radii, and determine the correlation lengths associated with the exponential convergence of the braiding statistics. We provide the first microscopic verification for the Fibonacci nature of the Z_{3} Read-Rezayi quasiholes. We also present evidence for the failure of plasma screening in the nonunitary Gaffnian wave function.
We study the non-Abelian statistics of quasiparticles in the Ising-type quantum Hall states which are likely candidates to explain the observed Hall conductivity plateaus in the second Landau level, most notably the one at filling fraction $\ensuremath{\nu}=5/2$. We complete the program started in V. Gurarie and C. Nayak, [Nucl. Phys. B 506, 685 (1997)]. and show that the degenerate four-quasihole and six-quasihole wave functions of the Moore-Read Pfaffian state are orthogonal with equal constant norms in the basis given by conformal blocks in a c=1+12c=1+\frac{1}{2}c=1+21​ conformal field theory. As a consequence, this proves that the non-Abelian statistics of the excitations in this state are given by the explicit analytic continuation of these wave functions. Our proof is based on a plasma analogy derived from the Coulomb gas construction of Ising model correlation functions involving both order and (at most two) disorder operators. We show how this computation also determines the non-Abelian statistics of collections of more than six quasiholes and give an explicit expression for the corresponding conformal block-derived wave functions for an arbitrary number of quasiholes. Our method also applies to the anti-Pfaffian wave function and to Bonderson-Slingerland hierarchy states constructed over the Moore-Read and anti-Pfaffian states.
We propose a method of realizing non-Abelian braiding of fractionalized quasiholes in the Laughlin fractional quantum Hall phase at ν=1/3ν=1/3ν=1/3 with realistic two-body interactions within the lowest Landau level. It is numerically shown that low-lying gapped excitations near ν=1/3ν=1/3ν=1/3 are contained almost entirely within the null space of the three-body Moore-Read model Hamiltonian. They are thus quantum fluids of non-Abelian quasiholes that are in principle physically accessible. In particular, Laughlin ground state can be described as a fluid of ``ψψψ-type" quasiholes formed by binding a magnetic flux with a Majorana fermion (MF), and the Laughlin quasiholes are described by the ``111-type'' quasiholes, which are magnetic fluxes without a MF attached. Within the Laughlin phase, Laughlin quasiholes can be locally fractionalized into non-Abelian quasiholes, when the strong attraction between them is overcome by properly designed one-body electronstatic trapping potentials. Extensive numerics with proper finite-size scaling corroborate this physical picture, and our study points to the possibility of realizing non-Abelian braiding within an Abelian topological phase in experiment without the need for fine-tuning realistic electron-electron interaction.
We study the non-Abelian statistics of quasiparticles in the Ising-type quantum Hall states which are likely candidates to explain the observed Hall conductivity plateaus in the second Landau level, most notably the one at filling fraction ν = 5/2.We complete the program started in V. Gurarie and C. Nayak, [Nucl. Phys. B 506, 685 (1997)].and show that the degenerate four-quasihole and six-quasihole wave functions of the Moore-Read Pfaffian state are orthogonal with equal constant norms in the basis given by conformal blocks in a c = 1 + 1 2 conformal field theory.As a consequence, this proves that the non-Abelian statistics of the excitations in this state are given by the explicit analytic continuation of these wave functions.Our proof is based on a plasma analogy derived from the Coulomb gas construction of Ising model correlation functions involving both order and (at most two) disorder operators.We show how this computation also determines the non-Abelian statistics of collections of more than six quasiholes and give an explicit expression for the corresponding conformal block-derived wave functions for an arbitrary number of quasiholes.Our method also applies to the anti-Pfaffian wave function and to Bonderson-Slingerland hierarchy states constructed over the Moore-Read and anti-Pfaffian states.
We review some theoretical progress towards understanding the origin of the fractional quantum Hall effect at filling factor 5/2 using numerical techniques. The leading candidate thought to describe the physics is the Moore-Read Pfaffian state which supports non-abelian anyonic excitations. Interestingly, these excitations have possible applications in topologically protected quantum information processing. Specifically, we discuss how the finite-thickness of realistic quasi-two-dimensional systems stabilizes the Moore-Read Pfaffian in the fractional quantum Hall effect at 5/2 and the use of bilayer systems in the second Landau level to investigate the possible quantum phase transition between abelian and non-abelian fractional quantum Hall states.