Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2210.10255

Non-Abelian braiding of graph vertices in a superconducting processor

Trond I. Andersen, Yuri D. Lensky, Kostyantyn Kechedzhi, Ilya Drozdov, Andreas Bengtsson, Sabrina Hong, Alexis Morvan, Mi, Xiao, Alex Opremcak, Rajeev Acharya, Allen, Richard, M. Ansmann, Frank Arute, Kunal Arya, Abraham T. Asfaw, Juan Atalaya, Ryan Babbush, Dave Bacon, Joseph C. Bardin, Gina Bortoli, Alexandre Bourassa, Jenna Bovaird, Brill, Leon, Michael Broughton, Bob B. Buckley, David A. Buell, Tim Burger, Brian Burkett, Nicholas Bushnell, Zijun Chen, B. Chiaro, Desmond Chik, Charina Chou, J. G. Cogan, Roberto Collins, Paul W. Conner, William Courtney, Alexander L. Crook, Ben Curtin, Dripto M. Debroy, Alexander Del Toro Barba, Sean Demura, A. Dunsworth, Daniel Eppens, Catherine Erickson, Lara Faoro, Edward Farhi, Reza Fatemi, Vinicius S. Ferreira, Leslie Flores Burgos, Ebrahim Forati, Austin G. Fowler, Brooks Foxen, Giang, William, Craig Gidney, Dar Gilboa, Marissa Giustina, Raja Gosula, Alejandro Grajales Dau, Jonathan A. Gross, Steve Habegger, Hamilton, Michael C., Monica A. Hansen, Matthew P. Harrigan, Sean David Harrington, Paula Heu, Hilton, Jeremy, M. R. Hoffmann, Trent Huang, Ashley Huff, William J. Huggins, L. B. Ioffe, Sergei V. Isakov, Justin Iveland, Evan R. Jeffrey, Jiang Zhang, Cody Jones, Pavol Juhás, Dvir Kafri, Tanuj Khattar, Mostafa Khezri, Mária Kieferová, Seon Kim, Alexei Kitaev, Paul V. Klimov, Andrey R. Klots, Alexander N. Korotkov, Fedor Kostritsa, John Mark Kreikebaum, David Landhuis, Pavel Laptev, Kim-Ming Lau, Lily Laws, Joonho Lee, Lee, Kenny, Brian Lester, Alexander T. Lill, Wayne Liu, Aditya Locharla, Erik A. Lucero

Published Oct 19, 2022• 9 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Indistinguishability of particles is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. For all elementary and quasiparticles observed to date - including fermions, bosons, and Abelian anyons - this principle guarantees that the braiding of identical particles leaves the system unchanged. However, in two spatial dimensions, an intriguing possibility exists: braiding of non-Abelian anyons causes rotations in a space of topologically degenerate wavefunctions. Hence, it can change the observables of the system without violating the principle of indistinguishability. Despite the well developed mathematical description of non-Abelian anyons and numerous theoretical proposals, the experimental observation of their exchange statistics has remained elusive for decades. Controllable many-body quantum states generated on quantum processors offer another path for exploring these fundamental phenomena. While efforts on conventional solid-state platforms typically involve Hamiltonian dynamics of quasi-particles, superconducting quantum processors allow for directly manipulating the many-body wavefunction via unitary gates. Building on predictions that stabilizer codes can host projective non-Abelian Ising anyons, we implement a generalized stabilizer code and unitary protocol to create and braid them. This allows us to experimentally verify the fusion rules of the anyons and braid them to realize their statistics. We then study the prospect of employing the anyons for quantum computation and utilize braiding to create an entangled state of anyons encoding three logical qubits. Our work provides new insights about non-Abelian braiding and - through the future inclusion of error correction to achieve topological protection - could open a path toward fault-tolerant quantum computing.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2210.10255

Related papers

Non-Abelian braiding of graph vertices in a superconducting processor

Google Quantum AI and Collaborators, Trond I. Andersen, Yuri D. Lensky +97 more

Abstract Indistinguishability of particles is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics 1 . For all elementary and quasiparticles observed to date—including fermions, bosons and Abelian anyons—this principle guarantees that the braiding of identical particles leaves the system unchanged 2,3 . However, in two spatial dimensions, an intriguing possibility exists: braiding of non-Abelian anyons causes rotations in a space of topologically degenerate wavefunctions 4–8 . Hence, it can change the observables of the system without violating the principle of indistinguishability. Despite the well-developed mathematical description of non-Abelian anyons and numerous theoretical proposals 9–22 , the experimental observation of their exchange statistics has remained elusive for decades. Controllable many-body quantum states generated on quantum processors offer another path for exploring these fundamental phenomena. Whereas efforts on conventional solid-state platforms typically involve Hamiltonian dynamics of quasiparticles, superconducting quantum processors allow for directly manipulating the many-body wavefunction by means of unitary gates. Building on predictions that stabilizer codes can host projective non-Abelian Ising anyons 9,10 , we implement a generalized stabilizer code and unitary protocol 23 to create and braid them. This allows us to experimentally verify the fusion rules of the anyons and braid them to realize their statistics. We then study the prospect of using the anyons for quantum computation and use braiding to create an entangled state of anyons encoding three logical qubits. Our work provides new insights about non-Abelian braiding and, through the future inclusion of error correction to achieve topological protection, could open a path towards fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Nature•May 11, 2023•108 citations

Non-Abelian braiding of Fibonacci anyons with a superconducting processor

Shibo Xu, Zheng-Zhi Sun, Ke Wang +29 more

Abstract Quantum many-body systems with a non-Abelian topological order can host anyonic quasiparticles. It has been proposed that anyons could be used to encode and manipulate information in a topologically protected manner that is immune to local noise, with quantum gates performed by braiding and fusing anyons. Unfortunately, realizing non-Abelian topologically ordered states is challenging, and it was not until recently that the signatures of non-Abelian statistics were observed through digital quantum simulation approaches. However, not all forms of topological order can be used to realize universal quantum computation. Here we use a superconducting quantum processor to simulate non-Abelian topologically ordered states of the Fibonacci string-net model and demonstrate braidings of Fibonacci anyons featuring universal computational power. We demonstrate the non-trivial topological nature of the quantum states by measuring the topological entanglement entropy. In addition, we create two pairs of Fibonacci anyons and demonstrate their fusion rule and non-Abelian braiding statistics by applying unitary gates on the underlying physical qubits. Our results establish a digital approach to explore non-Abelian topological states and their associated braiding statistics with current noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors.

arXiv:2404.00091•Nature Physics•Jul 1, 2024•55 citations

Universal Gates from Braiding and Fusing Anyons on Quantum Hardware

Chiu Fan Bowen Lo, Anasuya Lyons, Dan Gresh +8 more

Topological quantum computation encodes quantum information in the internal fusion space of non-Abelian anyonic quasiparticles, whose braiding implements logical gates. This goes beyond Abelian topological order (TO) such as the toric code, as its anyons lack internal structure. However, the simplest non-Abelian generalizations of the toric code do not support universality via braiding alone. Here we demonstrate that such minimally non-Abelian TOs can be made universal by treating anyon fusion as a computational primitive. We prepare a 54-qubit TO wavefunction associated with the smallest non-Abelian group, $S_3$, on Quantinuum's H2 quantum processor. This phase of matter exhibits cyclic anyon fusion rules, known to underpin universality, which we evidence by trapping a single non-Abelian anyon on the torus. We encode logical qutrits in the nonlocal fusion space of non-Abelian fluxes and, by combining an entangling braiding operation with anyon charge measurements, realize a universal topological gate set and read-out, which we further demonstrate by topologically preparing a magic state. This work establishes $S_3$ TO as simple enough to be prepared efficiently, yet rich enough to enable universal topological quantum computation.

quant-pharXiv:2601.20956•Nature•Jan 30, 2026•0 citations

Digital Simulation of Projective Non-Abelian Anyons with 68 Superconducting Qubits

Shibo Xu, Zheng-Zhi Sun, Ke Wang +31 more

Non-Abelian anyons are exotic quasiparticle excitations hosted by certain topological phases of matter. They break the fermion-boson dichotomy and obey non-Abelian braiding statistics: their interchanges yield unitary operations, rather than merely a phase factor, in a space spanned by topologically degenerate wavefunctions. They are the building blocks of topological quantum computing. However, experimental observation of non-Abelian anyons and their characterizing braiding statistics is notoriously challenging and has remained elusive hitherto, in spite of various theoretical proposals. Here, we report an experimental quantum digital simulation of projective non-Abelian anyons and their braiding statistics with up to 68 programmable superconducting qubits arranged on a two-dimensional lattice. By implementing the ground states of the toric-code model with twists through quantum circuits, we demonstrate that twists exchange electric and magnetic charges and behave as a particular type of non-Abelian anyons, i.e., the Ising anyons. In particular, we show experimentally that these twists follow the fusion rules and non-Abelian braiding statistics of the Ising type, and can be explored to encode topological logical qubits. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to implement both single- and two-qubit logic gates through applying a sequence of elementary Pauli gates on the underlying physical qubits. Our results demonstrate a versatile quantum digital approach for simulating non-Abelian anyons, offering a new lens into the study of such peculiar quasiparticles.

arXiv:2211.09802•Chinese Physics Letters•May 7, 2023•120 citations

Anyon braiding statistics： From fundamental physics to scalable quantum computing

HE Jianhong, GAO Jie

Topological quantum computation aims to encode quantum information in the nonlocal degrees of freedom of non-Abelian anyons and manipulate it through braiding and fusion operations， offering a promising pathway to fault-tolerant quantum computation. Non-Abelian anyons， with their nontrivial braiding statistics and intrinsic topological fault tolerance， are regarded as a key building block for realizing scalable and decoherence-resistant quantum computing. This review systematically surveys the key developments in anyon physics over the past four decades， from the early theoretical prediction of fractional statistics to direct experimental verification of anyon braiding in fractional quantum Hall states. The physical principles and key findings of essential experimental schemes， including Fabry-Pérot interferometers， Mach-Zehnder interferometers， and anyon colliders， are comprehensively covered. Based on these foundations， the characterization of topological order in even-denominator fractional quantum Hall states， exemplified by the ν=5/2 state， and transport and interferometric probes of non-Abelian statistics are discussed in detail. Furthermore， recent advances in topological quantum states in novel material platforms， including graphene and twisted transition metal dichalcogenides， are reviewed， together with artificial quantum platforms that simulate non-Abelian braiding using superconducting quantum processors. Finally， the key challenges and future directions on the path from anyon physics to scalable topological quantum computing prototype devices are outlined.

•Sep 1, 2026•0 citations

Graph gauge theory of mobile non-Abelian anyons in a qubit stabilizer code

Yuri D. Lensky, Kostyantyn Kechedzhi, I. L. Aleǐner +1 more

Stabilizer codes allow for non-local encoding and processing of quantum information. Deformations of stabilizer surface codes introduce new and non-trivial geometry, in particular leading to emergence of long sought after objects known as projective Ising non-Abelian anyons. Braiding of such anyons is a key ingredient of topological quantum computation. We suggest a simple and systematic approach to construct effective unitary protocols for braiding, manipulation and readout of non-Abelian anyons and preparation of their entangled states. We generalize the surface code to a more generic graph with vertices of degree 2, 3 and 4. Our approach is based on the mapping of the stabilizer code defined on such a graph onto a model of Majorana fermions charged with respect to two emergent gauge fields. One gauge field is akin to the physical magnetic field. The other one is responsible for emergence of the non-Abelian anyonic statistics and has a purely geometric origin. This field arises from assigning certain rules of orientation on the graph known as the Kasteleyn orientation in the statistical theory of dimer coverings. Each 3-degree vertex on the graph carries the flux of this “Kasteleyn” field and hosts a non-Abelian anyon. In our approach all the experimentally relevant operators are unambiguously fixed by locality, unitarity and gauge invariance. We illustrate the power of our method by making specific prescriptions for experiments verifying the non-Abelian statistics.

arXiv:2210.09282•Annals of Physics•Mar 22, 2023•12 citations
Indistinguishability of particles is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. For all elementary and quasiparticles observed to date - including fermions, bosons, and Abelian anyons - this principle guarantees that the braiding of identical particles leaves the system unchanged. However, in two spatial dimensions, an intriguing possibility exists: braiding of non-Abelian anyons causes rotations in a space of topologically degenerate wavefunctions. Hence, it can change the observables of the system without violating the principle of indistinguishability. Despite the well developed mathematical description of non-Abelian anyons and numerous theoretical proposals, the experimental observation of their exchange statistics has remained elusive for decades. Controllable many-body quantum states generated on quantum processors offer another path for exploring these fundamental phenomena. While efforts on conventional solid-state platforms typically involve Hamiltonian dynamics of quasi-particles, superconducting quantum processors allow for directly manipulating the many-body wavefunction via unitary gates. Building on predictions that stabilizer codes can host projective non-Abelian Ising anyons, we implement a generalized stabilizer code and unitary protocol to create and braid them. This allows us to experimentally verify the fusion rules of the anyons and braid them to realize their statistics. We then study the prospect of employing the anyons for quantum computation and utilize braiding to create an entangled state of anyons encoding three logical qubits. Our work provides new insights about non-Abelian braiding and - through the future inclusion of error correction to achieve topological protection - could open a path toward fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Abstract Indistinguishability of particles is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics 1 . For all elementary and quasiparticles observed to date—including fermions, bosons and Abelian anyons—this principle guarantees that the braiding of identical particles leaves the system unchanged 2,3 . However, in two spatial dimensions, an intriguing possibility exists: braiding of non-Abelian anyons causes rotations in a space of topologically degenerate wavefunctions 4–8 . Hence, it can change the observables of the system without violating the principle of indistinguishability. Despite the well-developed mathematical description of non-Abelian anyons and numerous theoretical proposals 9–22 , the experimental observation of their exchange statistics has remained elusive for decades. Controllable many-body quantum states generated on quantum processors offer another path for exploring these fundamental phenomena. Whereas efforts on conventional solid-state platforms typically involve Hamiltonian dynamics of quasiparticles, superconducting quantum processors allow for directly manipulating the many-body wavefunction by means of unitary gates. Building on predictions that stabilizer codes can host projective non-Abelian Ising anyons 9,10 , we implement a generalized stabilizer code and unitary protocol 23 to create and braid them. This allows us to experimentally verify the fusion rules of the anyons and braid them to realize their statistics. We then study the prospect of using the anyons for quantum computation and use braiding to create an entangled state of anyons encoding three logical qubits. Our work provides new insights about non-Abelian braiding and, through the future inclusion of error correction to achieve topological protection, could open a path towards fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Abstract Quantum many-body systems with a non-Abelian topological order can host anyonic quasiparticles. It has been proposed that anyons could be used to encode and manipulate information in a topologically protected manner that is immune to local noise, with quantum gates performed by braiding and fusing anyons. Unfortunately, realizing non-Abelian topologically ordered states is challenging, and it was not until recently that the signatures of non-Abelian statistics were observed through digital quantum simulation approaches. However, not all forms of topological order can be used to realize universal quantum computation. Here we use a superconducting quantum processor to simulate non-Abelian topologically ordered states of the Fibonacci string-net model and demonstrate braidings of Fibonacci anyons featuring universal computational power. We demonstrate the non-trivial topological nature of the quantum states by measuring the topological entanglement entropy. In addition, we create two pairs of Fibonacci anyons and demonstrate their fusion rule and non-Abelian braiding statistics by applying unitary gates on the underlying physical qubits. Our results establish a digital approach to explore non-Abelian topological states and their associated braiding statistics with current noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors.
Topological quantum computation encodes quantum information in the internal fusion space of non-Abelian anyonic quasiparticles, whose braiding implements logical gates. This goes beyond Abelian topological order (TO) such as the toric code, as its anyons lack internal structure. However, the simplest non-Abelian generalizations of the toric code do not support universality via braiding alone. Here we demonstrate that such minimally non-Abelian TOs can be made universal by treating anyon fusion as a computational primitive. We prepare a 54-qubit TO wavefunction associated with the smallest non-Abelian group, S3S_3S3​, on Quantinuum's H2 quantum processor. This phase of matter exhibits cyclic anyon fusion rules, known to underpin universality, which we evidence by trapping a single non-Abelian anyon on the torus. We encode logical qutrits in the nonlocal fusion space of non-Abelian fluxes and, by combining an entangling braiding operation with anyon charge measurements, realize a universal topological gate set and read-out, which we further demonstrate by topologically preparing a magic state. This work establishes S3S_3S3​ TO as simple enough to be prepared efficiently, yet rich enough to enable universal topological quantum computation.
Non-Abelian anyons are exotic quasiparticle excitations hosted by certain topological phases of matter. They break the fermion-boson dichotomy and obey non-Abelian braiding statistics: their interchanges yield unitary operations, rather than merely a phase factor, in a space spanned by topologically degenerate wavefunctions. They are the building blocks of topological quantum computing. However, experimental observation of non-Abelian anyons and their characterizing braiding statistics is notoriously challenging and has remained elusive hitherto, in spite of various theoretical proposals. Here, we report an experimental quantum digital simulation of projective non-Abelian anyons and their braiding statistics with up to 68 programmable superconducting qubits arranged on a two-dimensional lattice. By implementing the ground states of the toric-code model with twists through quantum circuits, we demonstrate that twists exchange electric and magnetic charges and behave as a particular type of non-Abelian anyons, i.e., the Ising anyons. In particular, we show experimentally that these twists follow the fusion rules and non-Abelian braiding statistics of the Ising type, and can be explored to encode topological logical qubits. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to implement both single- and two-qubit logic gates through applying a sequence of elementary Pauli gates on the underlying physical qubits. Our results demonstrate a versatile quantum digital approach for simulating non-Abelian anyons, offering a new lens into the study of such peculiar quasiparticles.
Topological quantum computation aims to encode quantum information in the nonlocal degrees of freedom of non-Abelian anyons and manipulate it through braiding and fusion operations， offering a promising pathway to fault-tolerant quantum computation. Non-Abelian anyons， with their nontrivial braiding statistics and intrinsic topological fault tolerance， are regarded as a key building block for realizing scalable and decoherence-resistant quantum computing. This review systematically surveys the key developments in anyon physics over the past four decades， from the early theoretical prediction of fractional statistics to direct experimental verification of anyon braiding in fractional quantum Hall states. The physical principles and key findings of essential experimental schemes， including Fabry-Pérot interferometers， Mach-Zehnder interferometers， and anyon colliders， are comprehensively covered. Based on these foundations， the characterization of topological order in even-denominator fractional quantum Hall states， exemplified by the ν=5/2 state， and transport and interferometric probes of non-Abelian statistics are discussed in detail. Furthermore， recent advances in topological quantum states in novel material platforms， including graphene and twisted transition metal dichalcogenides， are reviewed， together with artificial quantum platforms that simulate non-Abelian braiding using superconducting quantum processors. Finally， the key challenges and future directions on the path from anyon physics to scalable topological quantum computing prototype devices are outlined.
Stabilizer codes allow for non-local encoding and processing of quantum information. Deformations of stabilizer surface codes introduce new and non-trivial geometry, in particular leading to emergence of long sought after objects known as projective Ising non-Abelian anyons. Braiding of such anyons is a key ingredient of topological quantum computation. We suggest a simple and systematic approach to construct effective unitary protocols for braiding, manipulation and readout of non-Abelian anyons and preparation of their entangled states. We generalize the surface code to a more generic graph with vertices of degree 2, 3 and 4. Our approach is based on the mapping of the stabilizer code defined on such a graph onto a model of Majorana fermions charged with respect to two emergent gauge fields. One gauge field is akin to the physical magnetic field. The other one is responsible for emergence of the non-Abelian anyonic statistics and has a purely geometric origin. This field arises from assigning certain rules of orientation on the graph known as the Kasteleyn orientation in the statistical theory of dimer coverings. Each 3-degree vertex on the graph carries the flux of this “Kasteleyn” field and hosts a non-Abelian anyon. In our approach all the experimentally relevant operators are unambiguously fixed by locality, unitarity and gauge invariance. We illustrate the power of our method by making specific prescriptions for experiments verifying the non-Abelian statistics.