Description
Anyons [1,2] are low-dimensional quasiparticles that obey fractional statistics, hence interpolating between bosons and fermions. In two dimensions, they exist as elementary excitations of fractional quantum Hall states and they are believed to enable topological quantum computing. One-dimensional (1D) anyons have been theoretically proposed, but their experimental realization has proven to be difficult. In this talk, we report the observation [3] of emergent anyonic correlations in a 1D strongly-interacting quantum gas, resulting from the phenomenon of spin-charge separation. A mobile impurity provides the necessary spin degree of freedom to engineer anyonic correlations in the charge sector and simultaneously acts as a probe to reveal these correlations. Starting with bosons, we tune the statistical phase to transmute bosons via anyons to fermions and observe an asymmetric momentum distribution, hallmark of anyonic correlations. Going beyond equilibrium conditions, we observe dynamical fermionization of the anyons [4], where the momentum distribution of an expanding sample of 1D hardcore anyons following a trap quench becomes indistinguishable from that of a non-interacting, spin-polarized Fermi gas over time, irrespective of the statistical phase. Our work opens up the door to the exploration of non-equilibrium anyonic phenomena in a highly controllable setting.
[1] J. M. Leinaas and J. Myrheim, On the theory of identical particles, Il Nuovo Cimento B (1971-1996) 37, 1 (1977).
[2] F. Wilczek, Quantum mechanics of fractional-spin particles, Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 957 (1982).
[3] S. Dhar, B. Wang, M. Horvath, A. Vashisht, Y. Zeng, M.B. Zvonarev, N. Goldman, Y. Guo, M. Landini and H.C. Nägerl, 2024. Anyonization of bosons. arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.21131.
[4] A. del Campo, Fermionization and bosonization of expanding one-dimensional anyonic fluids, Phys. Rev. A 78, 045602 (2008).
