Unpolarized prethermal discrete time crystal

TL;DR

This paper introduces unpolarized prethermal discrete time crystals (UPDTCs), a new phase of matter that exhibits robust subharmonic oscillations without polarization, demonstrated through trapped-ion quantum simulations and quantum fluctuations.

Contribution

It proposes and analyzes UPDTCs that do not require polarization, expanding the understanding of prethermal time crystals and their quantum stabilization mechanisms.

Findings

Robust period-doubled dynamics in autocorrelation functions

UPDTCs are exponentially long-lived in high-frequency regimes

Quantum fluctuations, not classical spin flips, explain the dynamics

Abstract

Prethermal discrete time crystals (DTCs) are a novel phase of periodically driven matter that exhibits robust subharmonic oscillations without requiring disorder. However, previous realizations of prethermal DTCs have relied on the presence of polarization, either spontaneous or induced. Here, we introduce a new class of prethermal DTCs termed ``unpolarized prethermal discrete time crystals'' (UPDTCs) that arise without any uniform/staggered polarization and propose an experiment to observe them in current trapped-ion quantum simulators. By studying a model of trapped ions using a quantum circuit simulator, we demonstrate that robust period-doubled dynamics can persist in the autocorrelation function of the staggered magnetization, even though its expectation value does not exhibit such dynamics. The period-doubled dynamics is not explained by the classical picture of flipping spins but by quantum fluctuations. We establish that UPDTCs are exponentially long-lived in the high-frequency driving regime, a hallmark of prethermalization. These results expand the known phenomenology and mechanism of prethermal time crystals and underscore the role of quantum effects in stabilizing novel nonequilibrium phases.