Engineering statistical transmutation of identical quantum particles

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how entangling particles with external degrees of freedom can engineer a transmutation of their quantum statistics, potentially causing fermions to bunch and impacting quantum computing involving anyons.

Contribution

It introduces a method to engineer quantum statistical transmutation by entangling particles with external degrees of freedom, affecting their bunching behavior.

Findings

Fermions can be made to bunch through entanglement.

Quantum statistical transmutation can be engineered externally.

Implications for fractional and non-Abelian anyon statistics.

Abstract

A fundamental pillar of quantum mechanics concerns indistinguishable quantum particles. In three dimensions they may be classified into fermions or bosons, having, respectively, antisymmetric or symmetric wave functions under particle exchange. One of numerous manifestations of this quantum statistics is the tendency of fermions (bosons) to anti-bunch (bunch). In a two-particle scattering experiment with two possible outgoing channels, the probability of the two particles to arrive each at a different terminal is enhanced (with respect to classical particles) for fermions, and reduced for bosons. Here we show that by entangling the particles with an external degree of freedom, we can engineer quantum statistical transmutation, e.g. causing fermions to bunch. Our analysis may have consequences on the observed fractional statistics of anyons, including non-Abelian statistics, with serious implications on quantum computing operations in the presence of external degrees of freedom.