A Josephson frequency for fractionally charged anyons

Abstract

Anyons occur in two-dimensional electron systems as excitations with fractional charge in the topologically ordered states of the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect (FQHE). Their dynamics are of utmost importance for topological quantum phases and possible decoherence free quantum information approaches, but observing these dynamics experimentally is challenging. Here we report on a dynamical property of anyons: the long predicted Josephson relation fJ=e*V/h for charges e*=e/3 and e/5, where e is the charge of the electron and h is Planck's constant. The relation manifests itself as marked signatures in the dependence of Photo Assisted Shot Noise (PASN) on voltage V when irradiating contacts at microwaves frequency fJ. The validation of FQHE PASN models indicates a path towards realizing time-resolved anyon sources based on levitons.

Main text and supplementary material, 26 pages, 11 figures, published in Science 363 (2019) 846-849