Fig. 1: Concept.

We start with 56 trapped ¹⁷¹Yb⁺ ions in a quantum charge-coupled device and algorithmically encode pairs of qubits into qutrits. This allows us to prepare ground states of \({{\mathbb{Z}}}_{3}\) toric codes on tori of up to 6 × 4 qutrits. We conduct experiments to study the relationship between the anyons and the topological defects of this system, namely parafermion (shaded yellow) and charge conjugation defects (hatch pattern).