Time-crystalline Topological Superconductors
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
2020-03-11 v1
Abstract
Time crystals form when arbitrary physical states of a periodically driven system spontaneously break discrete time-translation symmetry. We introduce one-dimensional time-crystalline topological superconductors, for which time-translation symmetry breaking and topological physics intertwine---yielding anomalous Floquet Majorana modes that are not possible in free-fermion systems. Such a phase exhibits a bulk magnetization that returns to its original form after two drive periods, together with Majorana end modes that recover their initial form only after four drive periods. We propose experimental implementations and detection schemes for this new state.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1907.12570,
title = {Time-crystalline Topological Superconductors},
author = {Aaron Chew and David F. Mross and Jason Alicea},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.12570},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
10 pages, 7 figures