Quantum walk of two anyons across a statistical boundary

Abstract

We model a quantum walk of identical particles that can alter their exchange statistics by hopping across a domain wall in a one-dimensional lattice. Such a “statistical boundary” is transparent to single particles and affects the dynamics only by swapping multiple particles arriving together. We find that the two-particle interference is dramatically altered by reflections of these bunched waves at the interface, producing strong measurable asymmetries. Depending on the phases on the two sides, a bunched wave packet can get completely reflected or split into a superposition of a reflected wave and an antibunched wave. This leads to striking dynamics with two domain walls, where bunched waves can get trapped in between or fragment into multiple correlated single-particle wave packets. These findings can be realized with density-dependent hopping in present-day atomic setups and open up a paradigm of intrinsically many-body phenomena at statistical boundaries.