Physicists Create Exceptionally Durable Time Crystal

A highly durable time crystal, produced by a team from TU Dortmund University, has surpassed the lifespan of previous experiments by millions of times. This achievement validates an intriguing concept proposed by Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek approximately a decade ago, which has already made its way into science fiction films. The findings of this research have been published in Nature Physics.

Crystals, particularly those found in space, exhibit a periodic arrangement of atoms across vast distances. This arrangement contributes to the captivating appearance of crystals, resembling the smooth facets seen in gemstones.

In the realm of physics, space and time are often treated as interconnected entities, as demonstrated in special relativity. In 2012, Frank Wilczek, a physicist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Nobel Prize recipient, theorized the existence of time crystals in addition to spatial crystals.

According to Wilczek, for time crystals to exist, one of their physical properties must undergo spontaneous periodic changes over time, even without corresponding periodic interference within the system.

The possibility of time crystals has been a subject of contentious scientific discourse for several years, but it has already made its way to the big screen. For instance, a time crystal played a significant role in the Marvel Studios film Avengers: Endgame (2019).

Since 2017, scientists have managed to demonstrate potential time crystals on a few occasions. However, these systems, unlike Wilczek’s original concept, undergo temporal excitation with a specific periodicity but subsequently react with a period twice as long.

In 2022, a time-independent crystal that exhibits periodic behavior in time was successfully demonstrated in a Bose-Einstein condensate. However, its lifespan was limited to just a few milliseconds.

Now, a team of physicists from Dortmund, led by Dr. Alex Greilich, has developed a unique crystal composed of indium gallium arsenide. In this crystal, the nuclear spins serve as a reservoir for the time crystal. By continuously illuminating the crystal, a polarization of nuclear spins is formed through interaction with electron spins. This polarization then spontaneously generates oscillations, creating the equivalent of a time crystal.

Currently, the crystal’s lifespan has been extended to a minimum of 40 minutes, which is a remarkable improvement compared to previous demonstrations. Furthermore, there is potential for the crystal to exist for even longer durations.

By systematically altering the experimental conditions, the period of the crystal can be adjusted within a wide range. However, there are certain regions where the crystal loses its periodicity, known as “melting” areas.

Interestingly, these melting areas exhibit chaotic behavior that can persist for extended periods of time. This provides scientists with an opportunity to analyze the chaotic behavior of such systems using theoretical tools, a significant milestone in scientific research.

Overall, this breakthrough represents the first successful application of theoretical tools to study the chaotic behavior of these systems.

This article is republished from PhysORG under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.