Anyons and the quantum Hall effect -- a pedagogical review (Q2467712)

The principal objective in the present paper is to review the physics of anyons, particles whose statistics is neither fermionic nor bosonic, and the way it is manifested in the quantum Hall effect. After introducing the basic concepts of the play such as the quantum Hall effect, the Aharonov-Bohm effect and the Berry phase, the author shows why the mere experimental observation of the quantum Hall effect coerces us into accepting the existence of excitations that are no other than anyons, and how it raises the distinction between abelian and non-abelian anyons. Neither the relation of anyons to topological quantum computation nor that to topological quantum field theories and group theory are discussed here, for which one is referred, e.g., to [\textit{A. Yu. Kitaev}, Ann. Phys. 303, No. 1, 2--30 (2003; Zbl 1012.81006)] and [\textit{C. Nayak} et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 80, No. 3, 1083--1159 (2008; Zbl 1205.81062)]. In case that the dimension is larger than \(2\), the spin-statistics theorem claims that any multiparticle state of indistinguishable particles should obey either Bose-Einstein or Fermi-Dirac statistics. From a mathematical viewpoint, this is based on the familiar mathematical fact that, for \(n>2\), the groups \(\mathrm{SO}(n,1)\) and \(\mathrm{Poincar\'e}(n,1)\) have \(\mathbb{Z}_{2}\) as their first homotopy group. The situation is radically different in case of \(n=2\), in which the first homotopy group of both groups is \(\mathbb{Z}\). More specifically, projective representations of \(\mathrm{SO}(2,1)\) which do not arise from linear representations correspond to anyons. This is related to braid groups in knot theory, in which it is well known that in two dimension the group of permutations of two particles is not the symmetry group \(S_2\) but the braid group \(B_{2}\).