These two works establish classical Hamiltonian characteristics as a technique to large-scale simulations of prethermal stages of matter, therefore eliminate the stringent constraints for quantum many-body simulations, and open new opportunities in the growing field of non-equilibrium many-body dynamics.
Reference: “Classical Prethermal Phases of Matter” by Andrea Pizzi, Andreas Nunnenkamp and Johannes Knolle, 27 September 2021, Physical Review Letters.DOI: 10.1103/ PhysRevLett.127.140602.
By University of Vienna
October 3, 2021
A classical theory can catch prethermal DTCs in high-dimensional lattices with brief- to long-range interactions in which discrete time translational proportion is broken up to a greatly long period of time scale (in the driving frequency). Credit: © Figure adapted from Pizzi et al. to appear in PRL and PRB 2021.
An international team of physicists has revealed that novel non-equilibrium stages of matter– called prethermal discrete time crystals (DTCs)– can emerge in classical dynamics and do not depend on quantum mechanics. This makes large simulations with significance to experiments possible.
Among the declinations of time-crystalline phenomena that have been examined recent years, discrete time-symmetry breaking in prethermal DTCs lasts for a finite however extremely long time (exponential in drive frequency). Discovered in a quantum-mechanical setting, analyzing prethermal DTCs has so far stayed difficult to due to the well-known complexity of quantum many-body systems.
In a double publication, the group of physicists from Cambridge, TU Munich, and Nottingham (now at the University of Vienna) show that prethermal DTCs can be recorded by a classical theory that has virtually no numerical constraints. With massive mathematical simulations, the authors supply the current clearest portrait of these phenomena, e.g. the first circumstances of a prethermal DTC with short-range interactions in three measurements and scenarios of prime significance for experiments.