Building time crystals with ultracold atoms

该项目旨在创造一种新的奇异形式的量子物质，其中一个由超冷原子组成的多体系统在振动的镜子上反弹，自发地自组织其运动，其周期比镜子的驱动周期长数十倍。据预测，这种“时间晶体”对外界的干扰很强，并能持续很长时间。该项目预计将在时间域中产生关于奇异非平衡晶体现象的新知识，例如具有时间无序的多体局部化，它具有与直觉相反的特征，如没有热化和消失的直流传输。时间晶体可以为量子信息的存储和传输提供巨大的好处，这一点以及其他结果最终可能会导致商业产品。

This project aims to create a new exotic form of quantum matter in which a many-body system of ultracold atoms bouncing on a vibrating mirror spontaneously self-organises its motion with a period tens of times longer than the driving period of the mirror. Such ‘time crystals’ are predicted to be robust against external perturbations and to persist for very long times. The project expects to generate new knowledge on exotic non-equilibrium crystalline phenomena in the time domain, such as many-body localisation with temporal disorder, which has counter-intuitive characteristics such as absence of thermalisation and vanishing direct current transport. Time crystals could provide significant benefits for the storage and transfer of quantum information, and this, and other outcomes may ultimately lead to commercial products.