Fully frustrated Josephson junction ladders with Mobius boundary conditions as topologically protected qubits

We show how to realize a ``protected'' qubit by using a fully frustrated Josephson Junction ladder (JJL) with Mobius boundary conditions. Such a system has been recently studied within a twisted conformal field theory (CFT) approach (Mod. Phys. Lett. A 15 (2000) 1679; Nucl. Phys. B 641 (2002) 547) and shown to develop the phenomenon of flux fractionalization (Eur. Phys. J. B 49 (2006) 83). The relevance of a ``closed'' geometry has been fully exploited in relating the topological properties of the ground state of the system to the presence of half flux quanta and the emergence of a topological order has been predicted (JSTAT (2005) P03006). In this letter the stability and transformation properties of the ground states under adiabatic magnetic flux change are analyzed and the deep consequences on the realization of a solid state qubit, protected from decoherence, are presented.