Abstract
Discrete time crystals are periodically driven systems that display spontaneous symmetry breaking of time translation invariance in the form of indefinite subharmonic oscillations. We introduce a thermodynamically consistent model for a discrete time crystal and analyze it using the framework of stochastic thermodynamics. In particular, we evaluate the rate of energy dissipation of this many-body system of interacting noisy subharmonic oscillators in contact with a heat bath. The mean-field model displays the phenomenon of subharmonic synchronization, which corresponds to collective subharmonic oscillations of the individual units. The 2D model does not display synchronization but it does show a time-crystalline phase, which is characterized by a power-law behavior of the number of coherent subharmonic oscillations with system size. This result demonstrates that the emergence of coherent oscillations is possible even in the absence of synchronization.
- Received 17 February 2020
- Revised 24 June 2020
- Accepted 22 December 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.020603
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