2020/11/30 by Zheng-Hao Liu, Zhenghao Liu, Kai Sun +21
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Fermion #Kochen–Specker theorem #MAJORANA #Mathematics #Physics #Quantum #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum computer #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Qubit #Theoretical physics #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological quantum computer #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/prxquantum.2.030323
published as PRX Quantum 2, 030323 (2021) · 11+6 pages, 5+2 figures, 1+2 tables, presentation extended and improved, analysis and results the same, to appear in PRX Quantum
arxiv created 2021/07/11 · openalex publication_date 2021/08/09 · arxiv updated 2021/09/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Quasiparticle poisoning, expected to arise during the measurement of the Majorana zero-mode state, poses a fundamental problem for the realization of Majorana-based quantum computation. Parafermions, a natural generalization of Majorana fermions, can encode topological qudits immune to quasiparticle poisoning. While parafermions are expected to emerge in superconducting fractional quantum Hall systems, they are not yet attainable with current technology. To bypass this problem, we employ a photonic quantum simulator to experimentally demonstrate the key components of parafermion-based universal quantum computation. Our contributions in this paper are twofold. First, by manipulating the photonic states, we realize Clifford-operator Berry phases that correspond to braiding statistics of parafermions. Second, we investigate the quantum contextuality in a topological system for the first time by demonstrating the contextuality of parafermion-encoded qudit states. Importantly, we find that the topologically encoded contextuality opens the way to magic state distillation, while both the contextuality and the braiding-induced Clifford gates are resilient against local noise. By introducing contextuality, our photonic quantum simulation provides the first step toward a physically robust methodology for realizing topological quantum computation.