Modeling spontaneous breaking of time-translation symmetry
Abstract
We show that an ultracold atomic cloud bouncing on an oscillating mirror can reveal spontaneous breaking of a discrete time-translation symmetry. In many-body simulations, we illustrate the process of the symmetry breaking that can be induced by atomic losses or by a measurement of particle positions. The results pave the way for understanding and realization of the time crystal idea where crystalline structures form in the time domain due to spontaneous breaking of continuous time-translation symmetry.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review A
- Pub Date:
- March 2015
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevA.91.033617
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1410.3638
- Bibcode:
- 2015PhRvA..91c3617S
- Keywords:
-
- 67.85.-d;
- 03.75.Lm;
- 05.45.-a;
- 11.30.-j;
- Ultracold gases trapped gases;
- Tunneling Josephson effect Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials solitons vortices and topological excitations;
- Nonlinear dynamics and chaos;
- Symmetry and conservation laws;
- Condensed Matter - Quantum Gases;
- Condensed Matter - Disordered Systems and Neural Networks;
- Quantum Physics
- E-Print:
- 5 pages, 3 figures, version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. A