Citation: Alicki, Robert, M. Fannes, and Michał Horodecki. "A statistical mechanics view on Kitaev's proposal for quantum memories." Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 40.24 (2007): 6451.
Web: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0702102
Tags: Physical, Toric-code
This is a very physically grounded statistical mechanics view on the toric code. While I don't find this to be particularly enlightening, it feels very fresh, and it feels as though these people are taking a critical look at the toric code from a less standard lens. This is certainly a useful reference, and there could certainly be people for which this is the article to make TQC "click".
The main theme of this article is comparison with the 1D Ising model, and the statistical mechanics of that object.
This paper does not mention non-abelian topological order - its scope is limited to a detailed treatment of G=Z2.