Floquet heating, prethermalization and time crystals
Shaking a quantum system periodically can create phases impossible in equilibrium, such as a time crystal, which responds at a multiple of the driving period. The drive also adds energy, and the system eventually heats to a featureless state unless something prevents it.
Why it matters
Periodic driving is a main experimental tool for engineering quantum matter, and heating sets how long engineered phases last.
Review
D. V. Else, C. Monroe, C. Nayak, N. Y. Yao, Discrete Time Crystals, Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-031119-050658 reference checked
See also
Timestamp record
- Signed record
- 45ec164defd4…
- Public log
- Entry 135, in checkpoint 2,123
- In the log by
- Block 969,698, 2026-10-03
This text was in the PubPhys log by that date. The date says nothing about when the problem was first posed.