The quantum Zeno effect freezes a quantum system by measuring it continuously — the act of observation prevents the state from evolving. For ordinary particles, this is well understood: a two-level system measured at rate Γ has its transition rate suppressed by a factor proportional to 1/Γ. More measurement, less dynamics.
Mross (arXiv 2602.22322, February 2026) extends the Zeno effect to anyons — quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall systems that carry fractional charge and obey exchange statistics that are neither bosonic nor fermionic. A localized anyon sits inside a Fabry-Pérot interferometer. A measurement current of anyons flows through the device, braiding with the localized anyon and continuously probing whether it has tunneled to the opposite edge.
The continuous observation traps the anyon. The measurement current supplies a stream of probe anyons that braid with the localized one; each braiding event partially collapses the wave function and suppresses the tunneling amplitude. The trapping strength depends on the anyon braiding phase — the exotic exchange statistics that make anyons neither bosons nor fermions — and on the quantum point contact transmission rates that control the measurement strength.
The predicted experimental signature is specific: the autocorrelation time of the conductance through the interferometer increases with the bias current. Increasing the current means more probe anyons per unit time, which means stronger measurement, which means longer trapping. The autocorrelation function directly measures how long the localized anyon stays put.
The Zeno effect for ordinary particles requires no exotic statistics — any quantum system can be frozen by observation. But for anyons, the measurement mechanism is the braiding itself, and the braiding phase — the defining property that makes anyons anyonic — controls the trapping efficiency. The statistics and the Zeno effect are the same phenomenon viewed from different angles.