When geometric phases turn topological

Geometric phases, accumulated when a quantum system traces a cycle in quantum state space, do not depend on the parametrization of the cyclic path, but do depend on the path itself. In the presence of noise that deforms the path, the phase gets affected, compromising the robustness of possible applications, e.g. in quantum computing. We show that for a special class of spin states, called anticoherent, and for paths that correspond to a sequence of rotations in physical space, the phase only depends on topological characteristics of the path, in particular, its homotopy class, and is therefore immune to noise. (paper)