Braids and Beams: Exploring Fractional Statistics with Mesoscopic Anyon Colliders

Abstract

Anyon colliders -- quantum Hall devices where dilute quasiparticle beams collide at a quantum point contact -- provide an interferometer-free probe of anyonic exchange phases through current cross correlations. Within a non-equilibrium bosonization framework, the normalized cross-correlations take a universal form depending only on the exchange phase and the dynamical exponent, enabling experimental demonstration of anyonic statistics. This result can be interpreted as time-domain interference -- braiding in time rather than spatial exclusion or real-space interferometry. Extension to hierarchical states shows that the semiclassical step-function description of quasiparticles fails at large statistical angles. Introducing a finite soliton width resolves this issue and enables quantitative modeling of charge-$e/5$ quasiparticle collisions.

10 pages, 3 figures, Frontiers of Science Award Proceedings; references added