Local charge of the v = 5/2 fractional quantum Hall state

Electrons moving in two dimensions under the influence of strong magnetic fields effectively lose their kinetic energy and display exotic behaviour dominated by Coulomb forces. When the ratio of electrons to magnetic flux quanta in the system (nu) is near 5/2, the electrons are predicted to condense into a correlated phase with fractionally charged quasiparticles and a ground-state degeneracy that grows exponentially as these quasiparticles are introduced(1). The only way for electrons to transform between the many ground states would be to braid the fractional excitations around each other. This property has been proposed as the basis of a fault-tolerant quantum computer(2). Here we present observations of localized quasiparticles at nu = 5/2, confined to puddles by disorder. Using a local electrometer to compare how quasiparticles at nu = 5/2 and nu = 7/3 charge these puddles, we were able to extract the ratio of local charges for these states. Averaged over several disorder configurations and samples, we found the ratio to be 4/3, suggesting that the local charges are e(7/3)* = e/3 and e(5/2)* = e/4, where e is the charge of an electron. This is in agreement with theoretical predictions for a paired state at nu = 5/2. Confirming the existence of localized e/4 quasiparticles shows that proposed interferometry experiments to test statistics and computational ability of the state at nu = 5/2 would be possible.