A comment on "Discrete time crystals: rigidity, criticality, and realizations"

Abstract

The Letter by N. Y. Yao et. al. [1,2] presents three models for realizing a many-body localized discrete time-crystal (MBL DTC): a short-ranged model [1], its revised version [2], as well as a long-range model of a trapped ion experiment [1,3]. We show that none of these realize an MBL DTC for the parameter ranges quoted in Refs. [1,2]. The central phase diagrams in [1] therefore cannot be reproduced. The models show rapid decay of oscillations from generic initial states, in sharp contrast to the robust period doubling dynamics characteristic of an MBL DTC. Long-lived oscillations from special initial states (such as polarized states) can be understood from the familiar low-temperature physics of a static transverse field Ising model, rather than the nonequilibrium physics of an eigenstate-ordered MBL DTC. Our results on the long-range model also demonstrate, by extension, the absence of an MBL DTC in the trapped ion experiment of Ref. [3].

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