A 2D electron gas subjected to a magnetic field can adopt a “fractional quantum Hall” state, in which electrons and magnetic-flux quanta come together to form composite quasiparticles. About 80 such states have been observed so far, each characterized by its filling factor—the ratio of the number of electrons to the number of magnetic-flux quanta. Of special interest are filling factors with even denominators. The charge-carrying quasiparticles in these states could be harnessed for fault-tolerant quantum computing provided they are non-Abelian—that is, they share a collective degenerate ground state. Proving non-Abelian nature is challenging, especially for so-called next-generation states whose denominators are 8 and 10. Now Misha Yutushui of the University of Cologne in Germany and David Mross of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have devised a theory that encompasses those states and the ways their quasiparticles can pair up [1].
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