Towards Universal Topological Quantum Computation in the $ν=5/2$ Fractional Quantum Hall State

Michael Freedman, Chetan Nayak, Kevin Walker

Published 2005-12-05Version 1

The Pfaffian state, which may describe the quantized Hall plateau observed at Landau level filling fraction $\nu = 5/2$, can support topologically-protected qubits with extremely low error rates. Braiding operations also allow perfect implementation of certain unitary transformations of these qubits. However, in the case of the Pfaffian state, this set of unitary operations is not quite sufficient for universal quantum computation (i.e. is not dense in the unitary group). If some topologically unprotected operations are also used, then the Pfaffian state supports universal quantum computation, albeit with some operations which require error correction. On the other hand, if certain topology-changing operations can be implemented, then fully topologically-protected universal quantum computation is possible. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to measure the interference between quasiparticle trajectories which encircle other moving trajectories in a time-dependent Hall droplet geometry.