Abstract

An ergodic system subjected to an external periodic drive will be generically heated to infinite temperature. However, if the applied frequency is larger than the typical energy scale of the local Hamiltonian, this heating stops during a prethermal period that extends exponentially with the frequency. During this prethermal period, the system may manifest an emergent symmetry that, if spontaneously broken, will produce subharmonic oscillation of the discrete time crystal (DTC). We study the role of dissipation on the survival time of the prethermal DTC. On one hand, a bath coupling increases the prethermal period by slowing down the accumulation of errors that eventually destroy prethermalization. On the other hand, the spontaneous symmetry breaking is destabilized by interaction with environment. The result of this competition is a nonmonotonic variation, i.e., the survival time of the prethermal DTC first increases and then decreases as the environment coupling gets stronger.

Publication Details
Publication Type
Journal Article
Year of Publication
2023
Volume
130
Issue
13
ISSN Number
0031-9007, 1079-7114
DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.130.130401
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Contributors
Date Published
03/2023