Time Crystal
A state of matter that exhibits periodic structure in time, similar to how ordinary crystals have a periodic structure in space.
Proposed by Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek in 2012, time crystals were first observed in 2016. They exist in 'floquet' non-equilibrium phases where the system's internal state repeats at a period that is an integer multiple of the driving period. This perpetual motion (in the ground state, not doing work) challenges standard thermodynamics and has potential applications in stable quantum memory.
graph LR
Center["Time Crystal"]:::main
Rel_iteration["iteration"]:::related -.-> Center
click Rel_iteration "/terms/iteration"
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🧒 Explain Like I'm 5
Imagine a bowl of jelly that wobbles forever without ever losing energy or stopping. In a normal crystal (like a diamond), atoms are arranged in a repeating pattern in space. In a time crystal, the pattern repeats over and over in time, like a clock that never needs a battery.
🤓 Expert Deep Dive
Time-crystals are a manifestation of 'Discrete Time-Translation Symmetry Breaking' (DTTB). In a periodically driven (Floquet) many-body localized (MBL) system, the response of the system shows a sub-harmonic frequency, meaning it returns to its state after $ n imes T $ where $ T $ is the driving period. This rigidity against perturbations makes them candidates for high-coherence qubits since they are immune to thermalization.