Observation of half-integer thermal Hall conductance

Topological states of matter are characterized by topological invariants, which are physical quantities whose values are quantized and do not depend on the details of the system (such as its shape, size and impurities). Of these quantities, the easiest to probe is the electrical Hall conductance, and fractional values (in units of e ²/h, where e is the electronic charge and h is the Planck constant) of this quantity attest to topologically ordered states, which carry quasiparticles with fractional charge and anyonic statistics. Another topological invariant is the thermal Hall conductance, which is harder to measure. For the quantized thermal Hall conductance, a fractional value in units of κ ₀ (κ ₀ = π ²k _B ²/(3h), where k _B is the Boltzmann constant) proves that the state of matter is non-Abelian. Such non-Abelian states lead to ground-state degeneracy and perform topological unitary transformations when braided, which can be useful for topological quantum computation. Here we report measurements of the thermal Hall conductance of several quantum Hall states in the first excited Landau level and find that the thermal Hall conductance of the 5/2 state is compatible with a half-integer value of 2.5κ ₀, demonstrating its non-Abelian nature.