Quantum Symmetry Detection Using an Anyonic Plasmon Engine

Understanding quantum statistics and its impact on the performance of quantum devices is an essential step in the development of quantum technologies. To this end, we propose an experimental implementation of a continuous quantum engine utilizing a working medium of anyonic plasmons. Such surface plasmons are generated on a gold nanowire through the coupling of entangled Bell-state photons. Based on the statistical mixture of the Bell-state symmetry of incident photons, anyonic statistics are encoded in the surface plasmons. Work is extracted via the emission of electrons into a uniform electric field. We show that the average work extracted is independent of the particle statistics, but that higher moments of the work distribution are sensitive to the anyonic phase. Utilizing the Green-Kubo relations we demonstrate that measurements of electronic transport coefficients can yield information about the statistics encoded in the plasmons. We conclude with a short perspective on how a quantum plasmonic nanowire tip with anyonic phase control might be used to probe exotic quasiparticles in topological matter.