Demonstrating anyonic fractional statistics with a six-qubit quantum simulator

Anyons are exotic quasiparticles living in two dimensions that do not fit into the usual categories of fermions and bosons, but obey a new form of fractional statistics. Following a recent proposal [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 150404 (2007)], we present an experimental demonstration of the fractional statistics of anyons in the Kitaev spin lattice model using a photonic quantum simulator. We dynamically create the ground state and excited states (which are six-qubit graph states) of the Kitaev model Hamiltonian, and implement the anyonic braiding and fusion operations by single-qubit rotations. A phase shift of $\pi$ related to the anyon braiding is observed, confirming the prediction of the fractional statistics of Abelian 1/2-anyons.