Physics (Internal)

Long-lived interacting phases of matter protected by multiple time-translation symmetries in quasiperiodically driven systems

This event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.

The discrete time-translation symmetry of a periodically-driven (Floquet) system allows for the existence of novel, nonequilibrium interacting phases of matter. A well-known example is the discrete time crystal, a phase characterized by the spontaneous breaking of this time-translation symmetry. In this talk, I will show that the presence of multiple time-translational symmetries, realized by quasiperiodically driving a system with two or more incommensurate frequencies, leads to a panoply of novel non-equilibrium phases of matter, both spontaneous symmetry breaking ("discrete time quasi-crystals") and topological. In order to stabilize such phases, I will outline rigorous mathematical results establishing slow heating of systems driven quasiperiodically at high frequencies. As a byproduct, I will introduce the notion of many-body localization (MBL) in quasiperiodically driven systems.