Many-body–localized discrete time crystal with a programmable spin-based quantum simulator
J. Randall, C. E. Bradley, F. V. van der Gronden, A. Galicia, M. H. Abobeih, M. Markham, D. J. Twitchen, F. Machado, N. Y. Yao, T. H. Taminiau
Abstract
The discrete time crystal (DTC) is a nonequilibrium phase of matter that spontaneously breaks time-translation symmetry. Disorder-induced many-body localization can stabilize the DTC phase by breaking ergodicity and preventing thermalization. Here, we observe the hallmark signatures of the many-body–localized DTC using a quantum simulation platform based on individually controllable carbon-13 nuclear spins in diamond. We demonstrate long-lived period-doubled oscillations and confirm that they are robust for generic initial states, thus showing the characteristic time-crystalline order across the many-body spectrum. Our results are consistent with the realization of an out-of-equilibrium Floquet phase of matter and introduce a programmable quantum simulator based on solid-state spins for exploring many-body physics.