paper

Period- discrete time crystals and quasicrystals with ultracold bosons

arXiv:1907.04703 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.150601

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 counter-rotating species. The clock-like motion of the particles is at the core of a period- discrete time crystal where is the number of lattice sites. In presence of a "staircase-like" on-site potential, we report the emergence of a second characteristic timescale in addition to the period -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.

arXiv comment5 pages, 3 figures

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