Parastatistics and a secret communication challenge

Abstract

One of the most unconventional features of topological phases of matter is the emergence of quasiparticles with exotic statistics, such as non-Abelian anyons in two dimensional systems. Recently, a different type of exotic particle statistics that is consistently defined in any dimension, called $R$-parastatistics, is also shown to be possible in a special family of topological phases. However, the physical significance of emergent parastatistics still remains elusive. Here we demonstrate a distinctive physical consequence of parastatistics by proposing a challenge game that can only be won using physical systems hosting paraparticles, as passing the challenge requires the two participating players to secretly communicate in an indirect way by exploiting the nontrivial exchange statistics of the quasiparticles. The winning strategy using emergent paraparticles is robust against noise, as well as the most relevant class of eavesdropping via local measurements. This provides both an operational definition and an experimental identity test for paraparticles, alongside a potential application in secret communication.