Thermodynamics and Protection of Discrete-Time Crystals
arXiv:2503.15134 · doi:10.1103/hl8q-4wy9
Abstract
Discrete-Time Crystals (DTC) are a non-equilibrium phase of matter characterized by the breaking of time-translation symmetry in periodically driven quantum systems. In this work, we present a detailed thermodynamic analysis of a DTC in a one-dimensional spin-1/2 chain coupled to a thermal bath. We derive a master equation from the microscopic model, and we explore key thermodynamic quantities, such as work, heat, and entropy production. Our results reveal that the DTC signature inevitably decays in the presence of environmental noise, but we show that a periodic measurement scheme can mitigate the effects of decoherence, stabilizing the subharmonic oscillations of the DTC for extended periods. These findings provide insights into the robustness of time-crystalline phases and potential strategies for protecting them in experimental settings.
13 pages, 7 figures
References in corpus (13)
- Quantum trajectories and open many-body quantum systems
- Quantum Zeno dynamics: mathematical and physical aspects
- Observation of a continuous time crystal
- Colloquium: Quantum and Classical Discrete Time Crystals
- A non-equilibrium superradiant phase transition in free space
- Continuous sensing and parameter estimation with the boundary time-crystal
- Quantum metrology with boundary time crystals
- Observation of a critical prethermal discrete time crystal created by two-frequency driving
- Floquet time-crystals as sensors of AC fields
- Quantum thermodynamics of boundary time-crystals
- Swapping Floquet time crystal
- Prolonging a discrete time crystal by quantum-classical feedback
- Zeno Dynamics for Open Quantum Systems