Spatial-Translation-Induced Discrete Time Crystals

Time crystals, where time translation symmetry is spontaneously broken, are novel phases of matters in that they are proved to exist only in nonequilibrium[1]. In particular, time crystals in Floquet systems, called discrete time crystals (DTCs), have attracted much interest because of theoretical developments[2] and recent experimental realization[3].
In many of conventional DTCs, symmetry operation and its symmetry breaking are utilized [2], but only on-site symmetries are focused on. Therefore, we propose new DTCs named "spatial-translation-induced DTCs"(STI-DTCs), which is realized by spatial translation and its symmetry breaking[4]. By focusing on spatial translation symmetry, STI-DTCs have notable properties which do not exist in conventional DTCs -high controllability of DTC orders and nontrivial oscillation of local transport. We have also proposed a new way to realize DTCs in quantum circuits as an experimental platform.
References
[1] H. Watanabe, and M. Oshikawa, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 251603 (2015)
[2] D. V. Else, B. Bauer, and C. Nayak, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 090402 (2016)
[3] J. Zhang, P. W. Hess, A. Kyprianidis, et al., Nature 543, 217 (2017)
[4] K. Mizuta, K. Takasan, M. Nakagawa, and N. Kawakami, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 093001 (2018)