Probing anyonic statistics via Mach-Zehnder interferometry in quantum computers

Abstract

We introduce a synthetic Mach-Zehnder interferometer for digitized quantum computing devices to probe fractional exchange statistics of anyonic excitations that appear in quantum spin liquids. Employing an IonQ quantum computer, we apply this scheme to the toric ladder, a quasi-one-dimensional reduction of the toric code. We observe interference patterns resulting from the movement of `electric' excitations in the presence and absence of `magnetic' ones. We model the noise in IonQ via depolarizing Lindbladian dynamics, and find quantitative agreement with the measurements obtained from the quantum device. The synthetic Mach-Zehnder interferometer can thus also serve as an effective means to probe the coherence length and time scales of multi-qubit noisy quantum devices.