From a continuous to a discrete time crystal in a dissipative atom-cavity system

Abstract

We propose the dynamical stabilization of a nonequilibrium order in a driven dissipative system comprised an atomic Bose–Einstein condensate inside a high finesse optical cavity, pumped with an optical standing wave operating in the regime of anomalous dispersion. When the amplitude of the pump field is modulated close to twice the characteristic limit-cycle frequency of the unmodulated system, a stable subharmonic response is found. The dynamical phase diagram shows that this subharmonic response occurs in a region expanded with respect to that where stable limit-cycle dynamics occurs for the unmodulated system. In turning on the modulation we tune the atom-cavity system from a continuous to a discrete time crystal.

All-optical dissipative discrete time crystals

“…Yet, coupling to an external environment drains energy from a driven system and a periodic steady state can prevail [15][16][17] . Only recently has the investigation of dissipative DTCs gained traction [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] .…”

Stroboscopic aliasing in long-range interacting quantum systems

“…The robustness of the phenomenon to coupling to a bath, is of importance in view of a growing interest in the time crystal community towards dissipative limit cycles and period doubling phenomena in quantum optics related platforms [44,45,47,[93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105]. A thorough study of the interplay of noise and interactions lies beyond the scope of this work, but the resilience of subharmonic dynamics shown in Fig.…”

Route to Extend the Lifetime of a Discrete Time Crystal in a Finite Spin Chain without Disorder

“…This crucial insight has prompted several researchers to explore the possibility of realizing time crystals in non-equilibrium quantum systems [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. These efforts have been immensely fruitful and led to the development of an active area of research [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39].…”