We just "braided" some weird particles that aren't quite matter or light, which is a huge step toward a quantum computer that never glitches.
arXiv · March 13, 2026 · 2603.11182
Why it matters
By moving 'anyons' around each other in graphene, researchers performed a physical dance that encodes information in the topology of the system. This type of 'braiding' is the holy grail for building error-proof quantum computers because the information is protected by the geometry of the path itself.
From the abstract
Exchange statistics are a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics, dictating the symmetry of identical particle wavefunctions and thereby enabling emergent phenomena of many-body quantum states. The exchange-induced unitary transformation of both abelian and non-abelian anyonic wavefunctions can be probed using electronic fractional quantum Hall (FQH) interferometers, where quasiparticles propagating along the interfering FQH edge braid with those localized within the interferometer. Here, we