95
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
0
shares
• Record: found
• Abstract: found
• Article: found
Is Open Access

# Observation of a Discrete Time Crystal

Preprint

Bookmark
There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

### Abstract

Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a fundamental concept in many areas of physics, ranging from cosmology and particle physics to condensed matter. A prime example is the breaking of spatial translation symmetry, which underlies the formation of crystals and the phase transition from liquid to solid. Analogous to crystals in space, the breaking of translation symmetry in time and the emergence of a "time crystal" was recently proposed, but later shown to be forbidden in thermal equilibrium. However, non-equilibrium Floquet systems subject to a periodic drive can exhibit persistent time-correlations at an emergent sub-harmonic frequency. This new phase of matter has been dubbed a "discrete time crystal" (DTC). Here, we present the first experimental observation of a discrete time crystal, in an interacting spin chain of trapped atomic ions. We apply a periodic Hamiltonian to the system under many-body localization (MBL) conditions, and observe a sub-harmonic temporal response that is robust to external perturbations. Such a time crystal opens the door for studying systems with long-range spatial-temporal correlations and novel phases of matter that emerge under intrinsically non-equilibrium conditions.

### Most cited references7

• Record: found
• Abstract: found
• Article: found
Is Open Access

### Many body localization and thermalization in quantum statistical mechanics

(2014)
We review some recent developments in the statistical mechanics of isolated quantum systems. We provide a brief introduction to quantum thermalization, paying particular attention to the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis' (ETH), and the resulting single-eigenstate statistical mechanics'. We then focus on a class of systems which fail to quantum thermalize and whose eigenstates violate the ETH: These are the many-body Anderson localized systems; their long-time properties are not captured by the conventional ensembles of quantum statistical mechanics. These systems can locally remember forever information about their local initial conditions, and are thus of interest for possibilities of storing quantum information. We discuss key features of many-body localization (MBL), and review a phenomenology of the MBL phase. Single-eigenstate statistical mechanics within the MBL phase reveals dynamically-stable ordered phases, and phase transitions among them, that are invisible to equilibrium statistical mechanics and can occur at high energy and low spatial dimensionality where equilibrium ordering is forbidden.
Bookmark
• Record: found
• Abstract: found
• Article: found
Is Open Access

### Periodically driven ergodic and many-body localized quantum systems

,  ,   (2015)
We study dynamics of isolated quantum many-body systems under periodic driving. We consider a driving protocol in which the Hamiltonian is switched between two different operators periodically in time. The eigenvalue problem of the associated Floquet operator maps onto an effective hopping problem in energy space. Using the effective model, we establish conditions on the spectral properties of the two Hamiltonians for the system to localize in energy space. We find that ergodic systems always delocalize in energy space and heat up to infinite temperature, for both local and global driving. In contrast, many-body localized systems with quenched disorder remain localized at finite energy. We argue that our results hold for general driving protocols, and discuss their experimental implications.
Bookmark
• Record: found
• Abstract: found
• Article: found
Is Open Access

### Manipulation and Detection of a Trapped Yb+ Ion Hyperfine Qubit

(2007)
We demonstrate the use of trapped ytterbium ions as quantum bits for quantum information processing. We implement fast, efficient state preparation and state detection of the first-order magnetic field-insensitive hyperfine levels of 171Yb+, with a measured coherence time of 2.5 seconds. The high efficiency and high fidelity of these operations is accomplished through the stabilization and frequency modulation of relevant laser sources.
Bookmark

### Author and article information

###### Journal
2016-09-27
1609.08684