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A Solvable Model for Discrete Time Crystal Enforced by Nonsymmorphic Dynamical Symmetry

Quantum Physics 2023-10-10 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

Discrete time crystal is a class of nonequilibrium quantum systems exhibiting subharmonic responses to external periodic driving. Here we propose a class of discrete time crystals enforced by nonsymmorphic dynamical symmetry. We start with a system with nonsymmorphic dynamical symmetry, in which the instantaneous eigenstates become M\"obius twisted, hence doubling the period of the instantaneous state. The exact solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation shows that the system spontaneously exhibits a period extension without undergoing quantum superposition states for a series of specifc evolution frequencies or in the limit of long evolution period. Moreover, in such case the system gains a {\pi} Berry phase after two periods' evolution. Finally, we show that the subharmonic response is stable even when many-body interactions are introduced, indicating a DTC phase in the thermodynamic limit.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.17322,
  title  = {A Solvable Model for Discrete Time Crystal Enforced by Nonsymmorphic Dynamical Symmetry},
  author = {Zi-Ang Hu and Bo Fu and Xiao Li and Shun-Qing Shen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.17322},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

5 pages, 4 figures