Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment
Quantum logic gates from Dirac quasiparticles
Eduardo C. Marino, Jardel da Costa Brozeguini
Abstract
We show that one of the fundamental operations of topological quantum computation, namely the non-Abelian braiding of identical particles, can be physically realized in a general system of Dirac quasiparticles in 1 + 1D. Our method is based on the study of the analytic structure of the different Euclidean correlation functions of Dirac fields, which are conveniently expressed as functions of a complex variable. When the Dirac field is an (Abelian) anyon with statistics parameter s (2 s not an integer), we show that the associated Majorana states of such a field present non-Abelian statistics. The explicit form of the unitary, non-commuting (monodromy) matrices generated upon braiding is derived as a function of s and is shown to satisfy the Yang–Baxter algebra. For the special case of s = 1/4, we show that the braiding matrices become the logic gates NOT, CNOT,… required in the algorithms of universal quantum computation. We suggest that maybe polyacetylene, alternately doped with alkali and halogen atoms, is a potential candidate for a physical material realization of the system studied here.