2024/12/05 by Weihua Xie, Xie, Weihua, Michael Kolodrubetz +4 · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Hermitian matrix #Mathematics #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum Mechanics and Non-Hermitian Physics #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2412.04382
published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University)
openalex publication_date 2024/12/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Time crystals are systems that spontaneously break time-translation symmetry, exhibiting repeating patterns in time. Recent work has shown that non-Hermitian Floquet systems can host a time crystalline phase with quasi-long-range order. In this work, we investigate the effect of introducing a non-integrable interaction term into this non-Hermitian time crystal model. Using a combination of numerical TEBD simulations, mean-field analysis, and perturbation theory, we find that the interaction term has two notable effects. First, it induces a shift in the phase diagram, moving the boundaries between different phases. Second, a sufficiently strong interaction induces an unexpected symmetry-breaking transition, which is not captured by the mean-field approach. Within average Hamiltonian theory, we trace this back to a ferromagnetic transition in the anisotropic non-Hermitian XXZ model. Our results demonstrate that the interplay between non-Hermitian dynamics and many-body interactions can lead to novel symmetry breaking.