(Another) new phase of matter discovered

(Another) new phase of matter discovered – a time crystal – even more interestingly, it has unusual properties that appear to suggest a perpetual cycle without breaking the laws of physics. Similar to how a crystal’s structure repeats in space, a time crystal repeats in time and does so infinitely and without any further input of energy.

This recent advancement was announced in Nature on Nov. 20 by a team of scientists from from Stanford University, Google Quantum AI, the Max Planck Institute for Physics of Complex Systems and Oxford University. You can read their paper which details their creation of a time crystal using Google’s Sycamore quantum computing hardware here.

“Time-crystals are a striking example of a new type of non-equilibrium quantum phase of matter,” said Vedika Khemani, assistant professor of physics at Stanford and a senior author of the paper. “While much of our understanding of condensed matter physics is based on equilibrium systems, these new quantum devices are providing us a fascinating window into new non-equilibrium regimes in many-body physics.”

Read the full article here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211130130231.htm

Mi, X., Ippoliti, M., Quintana, C., Greene, A., Chen, Z., Gross, J., … & Roushan, P. (2021). Time-crystalline eigenstate order on a quantum processor. Nature, 1-1.