Statistical Mechanics and Symmetries of Non-Abelian Anyon Proliferation: From Deformation to Decoherence

Abstract

Topological quantum computation relies on braiding non-Abelian anyons, but requires the underlying topological order to survive imperfect state preparation and environmental noise. We show that the instability of topological order to wavefunction deformations and to decoherence, with the latter probed by syndrome distributions, is generically captured by stat-mech models whose $G\times \textrm{Rep}(G)$ symmetry naturally exposes the corrupting anyonic excitations. As an example, we combine this framework with Monte-Carlo simulations to resolve the stability of $D_4$ topological order under deformations and quantum channels that proliferate multiple non-Abelian anyon species that are individually unable to condense. We show that beyond a finite threshold, proliferation of two non-Abelian anyon species parasitically condenses a shared Abelian-anyon fusion outcome---destroying the topological order. Our symmetry-based approach suggests the resulting trivial phase is distinct from that obtained by condensing all Abelian anyons; in other words, the trivial phase "remembers" which anyons condensed. This framework provides a first step into identifying the relevant symmetry for optimal decoders, conditioned on syndrome measurements, of non-Abelian topological order.