Abstract
Recent experimental developments in detection and manipulationof quantum hall states with quasi-particles excitations followingnon-abelian statistics have raised hopes for building topologicalprotected quantum bits which form fundamental units of a topologicalquantum computer. I will first discuss recent experimental attempts todetect the non-abelain nature of the u = 5/2 quantum hallstate. Then I will talk about our theoretical proposal for detection ofneutral modes which exist at the boundary of the u = 5/2 quantum hallstate which is believed to be a direct reflections of the existenceof non-abelain quasi particle in the bulk. For detecting a neutral mode itis natural to look for thermal response rather then electrical response.But measuring thermal response in a controlled way is a formidable task inreal life experiments. I will discuss a setup, which can get around thisproblem by using a quantum point contacts in series follows by a shotnoisemeasurement. I will also discuss some very recent theoretical andexperimental developments which involve the use of a quantumdot as a thermoelectric probe for neutral modes.
