Many-body-localized discrete time crystal with a programmable spin-based quantum simulator
J. Randall (TU Delft - QuTech Advanced Research Centre, TU Delft - QID/Taminiau Lab, Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft)
C. E. Bradley (Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft, TU Delft - QuTech Advanced Research Centre, TU Delft - QID/Taminiau Lab)
F. V. van der Gronden (TU Delft - QuTech Advanced Research Centre, Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft, TU Delft - Servicedesk TNW)
A. Galicia (Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft, Student TU Delft)
M. H. Abobeih (Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft, TU Delft - QID/Taminiau Lab, TU Delft - QuTech Advanced Research Centre)
M. Markham (Element Six Innovation)
D. J. Twitchen (Element Six Innovation)
F. Machado (University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
N. Y. Yao (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California)
T. H. Taminiau (Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft, TU Delft - QuTech Advanced Research Centre, TU Delft - QID/Taminiau Lab)
More Info
expand_more
Abstract
The discrete time crystal (DTC) is a nonequilibrium phase of matter that spontaneously breaks timetranslation symmetry. Disorder-induced many-body localization can stabilize the DTC phase by breaking ergodicity and preventing thermalization. Here, we observe the hallmark signatures of the manybody- localized DTC using a quantum simulation platform based on individually controllable carbon-13 nuclear spins in diamond. We demonstrate long-lived period-doubled oscillations and confirm that they are robust for generic initial states, thus showing the characteristic time-crystalline order across the many-body spectrum. Our results are consistent with the realization of an out-of-equilibrium Floquet phase of matter and introduce a programmable quantum simulator based on solid-state spins for exploring many-body physics.
No files available
Metadata only record. There are no files for this record.