Non-Abelian braid statistics versus projective permutation statistics

Recent papers by Finkelstein, Galiautdinov, and co-workers [J. Math. Phys. 42, 1489 (2001); 42, 3299 (2001)] discuss a suggestion by Wilczek that non-Abelian projective representations of the permutation group can be used as a new type of particle statistics, valid in any dimension. Wilczek's suggestion was based in part on an analysis by Nayak and Wilczek (NW) of the non-Abelian representation of the braid group in a quantum Hall system. We point out that projective permutation statistics is not possible in a local quantum field theory as it violates locality, and show that the NW braid group representation is not equivalent to a projective representation of the permutation group. The structure of the finite image of the braid group in a 2(n/2-1)-dimensional representation is obtained. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.