Realizing string-net condensation: Fibonacci anyon braiding for universal gates and sampling chromatic polynomials

We review the q-deformed spin network approach to topological quantum field theory and apply these methods to produce unitary representations of the braid groups that are dense in the unitary groups. The simplest case of these models is the Fibonacci model, itself universal for quantum computation. We here formulate these braid group representations in a shape suitable for computation and algebraic work.

This review presents an entry-level introduction to topological quantum computation -- quantum computing with anyons. We introduce anyons at the system-independent level of anyon models and discuss the key concepts of protected fusion spaces and statistical quantum evolutions for encoding and processing quantum information. Both the encoding and the processing are inherently resilient against errors due to their topological nature, thus promising to overcome one of the main o...

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 th...

We investigate a promising conformal field theory realization scheme for topological quantum computation based on the Fibonacci anyons, which are believed to be realized as quasiparticle excitations in the $\mathbb{Z}_3$ parafermion fractional quantum Hall state in the second Landau level with filling factor $\nu=12/5$. These anyons are non-Abelian and are known to be capable of universal topological quantum computation. The quantum information is encoded in the fusion channe...

Non-Abelian anyons promise to reveal spectacular features of quantum mechanics that could ultimately provide the foundation for a decoherence-free quantum computer. A key breakthrough in the pursuit of these exotic particles originated from Read and Green's observation that the Moore-Read quantum Hall state and a (relatively simple) two-dimensional p+ip superconductor both support so-called Ising non-Abelian anyons. Here we establish a similar correspondence between the Z_3 R...

Classically simulating the dynamics of anyonic excitations in two-dimensional quantum systems is likely intractable in general because such dynamics are sufficient to implement universal quantum computation. However, processes of interest for the study of quantum error correction in anyon systems are typically drawn from a restricted class that displays significant structure over a wide range of system parameters. We exploit this structure to classically simulate, and thereby...

The content of this thesis can be broadly summarised into two categories: first, I constructed modified numerical algorithms based on tensor networks to simulate systems of anyons in low dimensions, and second, I used those methods to study the topological phases the anyons form when they braid around one another. In the first phase of my thesis, I extended the anyonic tensor network algorithms, by incorporating U(1) symmetry to give a modified ansatz, Anyon-U(1) tensor netwo...

We describe how continuous-variable abelian anyons, created on the surface of a continuous-variable analogue of Kitaev's lattice model can be utilized for quantum computation. In particular, we derive protocols for the implementation of quantum gates using topological operations. We find that the topological operations alone are insufficient for universal quantum computation which leads us to study additional non-topological operations such as offline squeezing and single-mod...

Non-Abelian topological order (TO) is a coveted state of matter with remarkable properties, including quasiparticles that can remember the sequence in which they are exchanged. These anyonic excitations are promising building blocks of fault-tolerant quantum computers. However, despite extensive efforts, non-Abelian TO and its excitations have remained elusive, unlike the simpler quasiparticles or defects in Abelian TO. In this work, we present the first unambiguous realizati...

We have studied ${\rm SU}(2)_k$ anyon models, assessing their prospects for topological quantum computation. In particular, we have compared the Ising ($k=2$) anyon and Fibonacci ($k=3$) anyon models, motivated by their potential for future realizations based on Majorana fermion quasiparticles or exotic fractional quantum-Hall states, respectively. The quantum computational performance of the different anyon models is quantified at single qubit level by the difference between...