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Period-n Discrete Time Crystals and Quasicrystals with Ultracold Bosons.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Knolle, Johannes 
Nunnenkamp, Andreas  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2390-7636

Abstract

We investigate the out-of-equilibrium properties of a system of interacting bosons in a ring lattice. We present a Floquet driving that induces clockwise (counterclockwise) circulation of the particles among the odd (even) sites of the ring which can be mapped to a fully connected model of clocks of two counterrotating species. The clocklike motion of the particles is at the core of a period-n discrete time crystal where L=2n is the number of lattice sites. In the presence of a "staircaselike" on-site potential, we report the emergence of a second characteristic timescale in addition to the period n-tupling. This new timescale depends on the microscopic parameters of the Hamiltonian and is incommensurate with the Floquet period, underpinning a dynamical phase we call "time quasicrystal." The rich dynamical phase diagram also features a thermal phase and an oscillatory phase, all of which we investigate and characterize. Our simple, yet rich model can be realized with state-of-the-art ultracold atoms experiments.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.quant-gas, cond-mat.quant-gas, quant-ph

Journal Title

Phys Rev Lett

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-9007
1079-7114

Volume Title

123

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
The Royal Society (uf130303)
Royal Society (RGF/EA/180038)
A. P. acknowledges support from the Royal Society. A. N. holds a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society and acknowledges additional support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability.