Topological quantum computation has recently emerged as one of the most exciting approaches to constructing a fault-tolerant quantum computer. The proposal relies on the existence of topological states of matter whose quasiparticle excitations are neither bosons nor fermions, but are particles known as Non-Abelian anyons, meaning that they obey non-Abelian braiding statistics. Quantum information is stored in states with multiple quasiparticles, which have a topological degeneracy. The unitary gate operations which are necessary for quantum computation are carried out by braiding quasiparticles, and then measuring the multi-quasiparticle states. The fault-tolerance of a topological quantum computer arises from the non-local encoding of the states of the quasiparticles, which makes them immune to errors caused by local perturbations. To date, the only such topological states thought to have been found in nature are fractional quantum Hall states, most prominently the ν = 5/2 state, although several other prospective candidates have been proposed in systems as disparate as ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices and thin film superconductors. In this review article, we describe current research in this field, focusing on the general theoretical concepts of non-Abelian statistics as it relates to topological quantum computation, on understanding non-Abelian quantum Hall states, on proposed experiments to detect non-Abelian anyons, and on proposed architectures for a topological quantum computer. We address both the mathematical underpinnings of topological quantum computation and the physics of the subject using the ν = 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state as the archetype of a non-Abelian topological state enabling fault-tolerant quantum computation.

The use of multiple-antenna arrays in both transmission and reception promises huge increases in the throughput of wireless communication systems. It is therefore important to analyze the capacities of such systems in realistic situations, which may include spatially correlated channels and correlated noise, as well as correlated interferers with known channel at the receiver. Here, we present an approach that provides analytic expressions for the statistics, i.e., the moments of the distribution, of the mutual information of multiple-antenna systems with arbitrary correlations, interferers, and noise. We assume that the channels of the signal and the interference are Gaussian with arbitrary covariance. Although this method is valid formally for large antenna numbers, it produces extremely accurate results even for arrays with as few as two or three antennas. We also develop a method to analytically optimize over the input signal covariance, which enables us to calculate analytic capacities when the transmitter has knowledge of the statistics of the channel (i.e., the channel covariance). In many cases of interest, this capacity is very close to the full closed-loop capacity, in which the transmitter has instantaneous channel knowledge. We apply this analytic approach to a number of examples and we compare our results with simulations to establish the validity of this approach. This method provides a simple tool to analyze the statistics of throughput for arrays of any size. The emphasis of this paper is on elucidating the novel mathematical methods used.

Sr & RuO ' is an unconventional superconductor that has attracted widespread study because of its high purity and the possibility that its superconducting order parameter has odd parity. We study the dependence of its superconductivity on anisotropic strain. Applying uniaxial pressures of up to ~1 GPa along a 〈100〉 direction ( -axis) of the crystal lattice results in . increasing from 1.5 K in the unstrained material to 3.4 K at compression by ≈0.6%, and then falling steeply. Calculations give evidence that the observed maximum . occurs at or near a Lifshitz transition when the Fermi level passes through a Van Hove singularity, and open the possibility that the highly strained, . =3.4 K Sr & RuO ' has an even-rather than an odd-parity order parameter.The formation of superconductivity by the condensation of electron pairs into a coherent

A fractional quantized Hall state with filling fraction ν = p/(2mp + 1) can be modeled as an integer quantized Hall state of transformed fermions, interacting with a Chern-Simons field. The electromagnetic response function for these states at arbitrary frequency and wavevector can be calculated using a semiclassical approximation or the Random Phase Approximation (RPA). However, such calculations do not properly take into account the large effective mass renormalization which is present in the Chern-Simons theory. We show how the mass renormalization can be incorporated in a calculation of the response function within a Landau Fermi liquid theory approach such that Kohn's theorem and the f -sum rules are properly satisfied. We present results of such calculations.

In topological quantum computation, quantum information is stored in states which are intrinsically protected from decoherence, and quantum gates are carried out by dragging particlelike excitations (quasiparticles) around one another in two space dimensions. The resulting quasiparticle trajectories define world lines in three-dimensional space-time, and the corresponding quantum gates depend only on the topology of the braids formed by these world lines. We show how to find braids that yield a universal set of quantum gates for qubits encoded using a specific kind of quasiparticle which is particularly promising for experimental realization.