A Qudit-native Framework for Discrete Time Crystals

TL;DR

This paper presents a qudit-native framework for creating and stabilizing discrete time crystals using multilevel structures, revealing new dynamical mechanisms and robustness criteria in various spin systems.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic, hardware-efficient approach to engineer stable, multifunctional Floquet phases of matter in qudit-based quantum processors, expanding beyond qubit limitations.

Findings

Subspace-selective embedded kicks stabilize higher-order subharmonic responses.

DTC robustness depends on the symmetry of level partitions.

Concurrent 2T and 3T DTCs demonstrated in spin-2 platforms.

Abstract

We introduce a qudit-native framework for engineering rich and robust discrete time crystals (DTCs) by leveraging their internal multilevel structure. Unlike in qubit systems, qudit-based DTCs exhibit distinct dynamical mechanisms that arise only in multilevel systems, as supported by a dressed normal-form analysis in the heating-suppression regime. These mechanisms are manifested in representative systems: we show that subspace-selective embedded kicks stabilize higher-order subharmonic responses and suppress thermalization, as demonstrated in spin-1 chains; in spin-3/2 systems, extending embedded kicks to more levels enables different level partitions and reveals that DTC robustness is dictated by the symmetry of the partition; and in spin-2 platforms, we realize concurrent 2T and 3T DTCs under a unified drive. These findings establish a systematic, hardware-efficient methodology for designing stable and multifunctional Floquet phases of matter on modern qudit-based quantum processors.