Physicists crack the math for exotic particles that could enable quantum computers
Researchers have developed a practical theoretical framework for modeling unusual two-dimensional particles called anyons, which could help engineers build more stable quantum computers. The work simplifies decades-old physics equations into a usable density functional theory, potentially accelerating development of quantum hardware based on these exotic states of matter.
Originaltitel: Magnetic Thomas-Fermi theory for 2D abelian anyons
Two-dimensional abelian anyons are, in the magnetic gauge picture, represented as fermions coupled to magnetic flux tubes. For the ground state of such a system in a trapping potential, we theoretically and numerically investigate a Hartree approximate model, obtained by restricting trial states to Slater determinants and introducing a self-consistent magnetic field, locally proportional to matter density. This leads to a fermionic variant of the Chern-Simons-Schrödinger system. We find that for dense systems, a semi-classical approximation yields qualitatively good results. Namely, we derive a density functional theory of magnetic Thomas-Fermi type, which correctly captures the trends of our numerical results. In particular, we explore the subtle dependence of the ground state with respect to the fraction of magnetic flux units attached to particles.