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Time crystals are many-body systems whose ground state spontaneously breaks time-translation symmetry and thus exhibits long-range spatiotemporal order and robust periodic motion. Using hydrodynamics, we have recently shown how an…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-12-15 R. Hurtado-Gutiérrez , C. Pérez-Espigares , P. I. Hurtado

Understanding different aspects of time is at the core of many areas in theoretical physics. Minimal models of continuous stochastic and quantum clocks have been proposed to explore fundamental limitations on the performance of timekeeping…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-31 Ludmila Viotti , Marcus Huber , Rosario Fazio , Gonzalo Manzano

Discrete time crystals are a many-body state of matter where the extensive system's dynamics are slower than the forces acting on it. Nowadays, there is a growing debate regarding the specific properties required to demonstrate such a…

Classical Physics · Physics 2019-09-25 Toni L. Heugel , Matthias Oscity , Alexander Eichler , Oded Zilberberg , R. Chitra

Discrete time-crystals are periodically driven quantum many-body systems with broken discrete-time translational symmetry, a non-equilibrium steady state representing self-organization of motion of quantum particles. Observations of…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2022-06-28 Subhajit Sarkar , Yonatan Dubi

We establish a link between metastability and a discrete time-crystalline phase in a periodically driven open quantum system. The mechanism we highlight requires neither the system to display any microscopic symmetry nor the presence of…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2019-01-10 F. M. Gambetta , F. Carollo , M. Marcuzzi , J. P. Garrahan , I. Lesanovsky

The spontaneous breaking of symmetries is a widespread phenomenon in physics. When time translational symmetry is spontaneously broken, an exotic nonequilibrium state of matter in which the same structures repeat themselves in time can…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2021-12-10 Marina Evers , Raphael Wittkowski

Time crystals are proposed states of matter which spontaneously break time translation symmetry. There is no settled definition of such states. We offer a new definition which follows the traditional recipe for Wigner symmetries and order…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2017-09-27 Vedika Khemani , C. W. von Keyserlingk , S. L. Sondhi

The public and scientists constantly have different perspectives. While on a time crystal, they stand in line and ask: What is a time crystal? Show me a material that is spontaneously crystalline in time? This study synthesizes a photonic…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-07-15 Bing Wang , Jiaqi Quan , Jianfei Han , Xiaopeng Shen , Hongwei Wu , Yiming Pan

Time crystals are time-periodic self-organized structures postulated by Frank Wilczek in 2012. While the original concept was strongly criticized, it stimulated at the same time an intensive research leading to propositions and experimental…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-01-19 Krzysztof Sacha , Jakub Zakrzewski

Discrete time crystals are related to non-equilibrium dynamics of periodically driven quantum many-body systems where the discrete time translation symmetry of the Hamiltonian is spontaneously broken into another discrete symmetry.…

Quantum Gases · Physics 2018-05-31 Arkadiusz Kosior , Krzysztof Sacha

The existence of quantum time crystals is investigated and shown to be possible in pure phases defined by a state invariant under a group of space translations, as displayed by explicit examples.

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-05-16 Franco Strocchi , Carlo Heissenberg

Periodic driving of particles can create crystalline structures in their dynamics. Such systems can be used to study solid-state physics phenomena in the time domain. In addition, it is possible to realize photonic time crystals and to…

Time crystals are unexpected states of matter that spontaneously break time translation symmetry either in a discrete or continuous manner. However, spatially-mesoscale space-time crystals that break both the space and time symmetries have…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2025-07-24 Hanqing Zhao , Ivan I. Smalyukh

In analogy with crystalline solids around us, Wilczek recently proposed the idea of "time crystals" as phases that spontaneously break the continuous time translation into a discrete subgroup. The proposal stimulated further studies and…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-06-26 Haruki Watanabe , Masaki Oshikawa

Time crystal is defined as a phase of matter spontaneously exhibiting a periodicity in time. Previous studies focused on discrete quantum time crystals under periodic drive. Here, we propose a time crystal model based on a levitated charged…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-08-27 Yi Huang , Qihao Guo , Anda Xiong , Tongcang Li , Zhang-qi Yin

Crystals form regular and robust structures that under extreme conditions can melt and recrystallize into different arrangements in a process that is called crystal metamorphism. While crystals exist due to the breaking of a continuous…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-01-04 Victor M. Bastidas , Marta P. Estarellas , Tomo Osada , Kae Nemoto , William J. Munro

The study of phases is useful for understanding novel states of matter. One such state of matter are time crystals which constitute periodically driven interacting many-body systems that spontaneously break time translation symmetry. Time…

Quantum Gases · Physics 2021-12-24 Arkadiusz Kuros , Rick Mukherjee , Florian Mintert , Krzysztof Sacha

We study discrete time crystal formation in a system driven periodically by an oscillating atomic mirror, consisting of two distinct ultracold atomic clouds in the presence of a gravitational field. The intra-species interactions are weak…

Quantum Gases · Physics 2025-06-30 Weronika Golletz , Krzysztof Sacha

Crystals spontaneously break the continuous translation symmetry in space, despite the invariance of the underlying energy function. This has triggered suggestions of time crystals analogously lifting translational invariance in time.…

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics · Physics 2024-02-29 A. Greilich , N. E. Kopteva , A. N. Kamenskii , P. S. Sokolov , V. L. Korenev , M. Bayer

We define what it means for time translation symmetry to be spontaneously broken in a quantum system, and show with analytical arguments and numerical simulations that this occurs in a large class of many-body-localized driven systems with…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2016-08-31 Dominic V. Else , Bela Bauer , Chetan Nayak