Nature
News: Some experts think that a quantum computation could
be plaited like a skein of string. And now they may have found
the sorts of string they need, finds Liesbeth Venema.When
Alexei
Kitaev published a
preprint
suggesting that the topological properties of
quasiparticles, moving around each other and behaving as
anyons, could be used as the basis for a new form of
error-proof
quantum
computing, it seemed absurd."I laughed when I first read
it," recalls
Nick Bonesteel,
a theoretical physicist at Florida State University in
Tallahassee. And there may still be some people laughing today
âmdash; but at least a few of them are doing
so with excited anticipation.
Related Physics Today material
Devices
Based on the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect May Fulfill the
Promise of Quantum Computing (October 2005)
