Measurements of quasiparticle tunneling in the υ=5/2 fractional quantum Hall state

• Main Authors: Lin, X. (Author), Dillard, Colin R. (Contributor), Kastner, Marc (Contributor), Pfeiffer, L. N. (Author), West, K. W. (Author)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. School of Science (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Physical Society, 2012-07-19T18:29:01Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 Some models of the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state predict that the quasiparticles, which carry the charge, have non-Abelian statistics: exchange of two quasiparticles changes the wave function more dramatically than just the usual change of phase factor. Such non-Abelian statistics would make the system less sensitive to decoherence, making it a candidate for implementation of topological quantum computation. We measure quasiparticle tunneling as a function of temperature and dc bias between counterpropagating edge states. Fits to theory give e*, the quasiparticle effective charge, close to the expected value of e/4 and g, the strength of the interaction between quasiparticles, close to 3/8. Fits corresponding to the various proposed wave functions, along with qualitative features of the data, strongly favor the Abelian 331 state.