Repository logo
 

Bistability and time crystals in long-ranged directed percolation.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Change log

Authors

Nunnenkamp, Andreas 

Abstract

Stochastic processes govern the time evolution of a huge variety of realistic systems throughout the sciences. A minimal description of noisy many-particle systems within a Markovian picture and with a notion of spatial dimension is given by probabilistic cellular automata, which typically feature time-independent and short-ranged update rules. Here, we propose a simple cellular automaton with power-law interactions that gives rise to a bistable phase of long-ranged directed percolation whose long-time behaviour is not only dictated by the system dynamics, but also by the initial conditions. In the presence of a periodic modulation of the update rules, we find that the system responds with a period larger than that of the modulation for an exponentially (in system size) long time. This breaking of discrete time translation symmetry of the underlying dynamics is enabled by a self-correcting mechanism of the long-ranged interactions which compensates noise-induced imperfections. Our work thus provides a firm example of a classical discrete time crystal phase of matter and paves the way for the study of novel non-equilibrium phases in the unexplored field of driven probabilistic cellular automata.

Description

Funder: Royal Society; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000288

Keywords

cond-mat.stat-mech, cond-mat.stat-mech, quant-ph

Journal Title

Nat Commun

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2041-1723
2041-1723

Volume Title

12

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Royal Society (RGF/EA/180038)
Royal Society (URF\R\191001)