Phys.org May 31, 2024
Time crystals (TCs) are many-body systems that display spontaneous breaking of time translation symmetry. An international team of researchers (Argentina, Germany) demonstrated a TC by using driven-dissipative condensates of microcavity exciton-polaritons, spontaneously formed from an incoherent particle bath. The TC phases were controlled by the power of a continuous-wave nonresonant optical drive exciting the condensate and the interaction with cavity phonons. The TC phases were, for increasing power, locking of the frequency of precession to self-sustained coherent phonons—stabilized TC; and doubling of TC’s period by phonons. According to the researchers the results established microcavity polaritons as a platform for the investigation of time-broken symmetry in nonhermitian systems… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Scheme of the experimental set-up. Credit: SCIENCE, 30 May 2024, Vol 384, Issue 6699, pp. 995-1000