Title: The quest for anyons in moiré materials
Abstract: Quasiparticles are localized excitations in solid state systems that cannot exist in free space. One fascinating example is anyons, which are defined by their fractional statistics, i.e., intermediate between bosons and fermions, and which can only exist in two spatial dimensions. Finding anyons in lattice systems has been an open challenge of the past decade. However, the recent realization of moiré materials provides optimism in this search. I will introduce the beauty, complexity, and computational challenges of studying moiré materials, and then explain why recent experiments in the past six months indicate a new home for anyons.