Quantum computers open the door to profound increases in computational power, but the quantum states they rely on are fragile. Topologically protected quantum states are more robust, but the most experimentally promising route to topological quantum computing limits the calculations these states can perform. Now, however, a team of mathematicians and physicists in the US has found a way around this barrier. By exploiting a previously neglected aspect of topological quantum field theory, the team showed that these states can be much more broadly useful for quantum computation than was previously believed.
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