@article{98973b7756ea4075867defbfe98b9792,
title = "Braiding photonic topological zero modes",
abstract = "A remarkable property of quantum mechanics in two-dimensional space is its ability to support {\textquoteleft}anyons{\textquoteright}, particles that are neither fermions nor bosons. Theory predicts that these exotic excitations can exist as bound states confined near topological defects, such as Majorana zero modes trapped in vortices in topological superconductors. Intriguingly, in the simplest cases the non-trivial phase that arises when such defects are {\textquoteleft}braided{\textquoteright} around one another is not intrinsically quantum mechanical; instead, it can be viewed as a manifestation of the geometric (Pancharatnam–Berry) phase in wave mechanics, which makes possible the simulation of such phenomena in classical systems. Here, we report the experimental measurement of the geometric phase owing to such a braiding process. These measurements are obtained with an interferometer constructed from highly tunable two-dimensional arrays of photonic waveguides. Our results introduce photonic lattices as a versatile platform for the experimental study of topological defects and their braiding, and complement ongoing efforts in the study of solid-state systems and cold atomic gases.",
author = "Jiho Noh and Thomas Schuster and Thomas Iadecola and Sheng Huang and Mohan Wang and Chen, {Kevin P.} and Claudio Chamon and Rechtsman, {Mikael C.}",
note = "Funding Information: M.C.R. and J.N. acknowledge support from the US National Science Foundation (NSF, grant no. ECCS-1509546) and the Penn State Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Center for Nanoscale Science (grant no. NSF DMR-1420620). Funding Information: M.C.R. acknowledges support from the US Office of Naval Research (grant no. N00014-18-1-2595) and the Packard Foundation (fellowship no. 2017-66821). J.N. acknowledges support by the Corning Incorporated Office of STEM Graduate Research. T.S. acknowledges support from the US NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (grant no. DGE 1752814). T.I. acknowledges support from the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, Microsoft and a Joint Quantum Institute postdoctoral fellowship, as well as Iowa State University start-up funds. K.P.C., S.H. and M.W. acknowledge support from the US NSF (grant nos. ECCS-1509199 and DMS-1620218). C.C. is supported by the US Department of Energy (grant no. DE-FG02-06ER46316). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.",
year = "2020",
month = sep,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1038/s41567-020-1007-5",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "16",
pages = "989--993",
journal = "Nature Physics",
issn = "1745-2473",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "9",
}