title: Universal anyons at the irradiated surface of topological insulator.
abstract: Anyons have recently received great attention due to their promising application in topological quantum computation. The best validated system that enjoys the anyonic excitations are the Laughlin states. The quasi-particles in Laughlin states are neither fermions nor bosons but possess the discrete statistical angle θ = π/m, with m being an integer. Here we report a possible realization of the universal Abelian anyons, whose statistical angle can be tuned continuously by external parameters and can take any arbitrary values interpolating θ = 0 and θ = π. The proposed setup is the surface state of a three dimensional topological insulator driven by an amplitude-modulated circularly-polarized light. It is found that the external field leads to a particular Floquet phase, which is a two-spatial-dimensional analogy of the Weyl semimetal phase in the Floquet first Brillouin zone. The chiral anomaly of this phase results in a U(1) Chern-Simons gauge theory with a tunable Floquet Chern number. Owing to this underlying gauge field theory, the irradiated surface of topological insulator constitutes a promising platform for the observation of the universal anyons.
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: College of Science, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: Baigeng
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
authors.forename: D Y
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Xing
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Nov 18;107(21):216601
references.pmid: 22181902
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 2013 Sep 27;111(13):136402
references.pmid: 24116797
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 2013 Jul 26;111(4):047002
references.pmid: 23931396
references.citation: Science. 2013 Oct 25;342(6157):453-7
references.pmid: 24159040
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 1988 Aug 1;61(5):517-520
references.pmid: 10039356
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 1987 Nov 2;59(18):2095-2098
references.pmid: 10035416
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Sep 16;107(12):127205
references.pmid: 22026796
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 2013 May 17;110(20):200403
references.pmid: 25167386
references.citation: Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Apr 18;112(15):156801
references.pmid: 24785064