Nonlinear two-level dynamics of quantum time crystals

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

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2022-06-02

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en

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9
1-9

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Nature Communications, Volume 13, issue 1

Abstract

A time crystal is a macroscopic quantum system in periodic motion in its ground state. In our experiments, two coupled time crystals consisting of spin-wave quasiparticles (magnons) form a macroscopic two-level system. The two levels evolve in time as determined intrinsically by a nonlinear feedback, allowing us to construct spontaneous two-level dynamics. In the course of a level crossing, magnons move from the ground level to the excited level driven by the Landau-Zener effect, combined with Rabi population oscillations. We demonstrate that magnon time crystals allow access to every aspect and detail of quantum-coherent interactions in a single run of the experiment. Our work opens an outlook for the detection of surface-bound Majorana fermions in the underlying superfluid system, and invites technological exploitation of coherent magnon phenomena – potentially even at room temperature.

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| openaire: EC/H2020/694248/EU//TOPVAC | openaire: EC/H2020/824109/EU//EMP Funding Information: We thank A. Vepsäläinen for stimulating discussions. This work has been supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 694248) and additionally by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 824109. The experimental work was carried out in the Low Temperature Laboratory, which is a part of the OtaNano research infrastructure of Aalto University and of the European Microkelvin Platform. S.A. and V.V.Z. were funded by UK EPSRC (EP/P024203/1, EP/W015730/1). S.A. acknowledges support from the Jenny and Antti Wihuri foundation, and P.J.H. that from the Väisälä foundation of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. We acknowledge the computational resources provided by the Aalto Science-IT project.

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Autti, S, Heikkinen, P J, Nissinen, J, Mäkinen, J T, Volovik, G E, Zavyalov, V V & Eltsov, V B 2022, ' Nonlinear two-level dynamics of quantum time crystals ', Nature Communications, vol. 13, no. 1, 3090, pp. 1-9 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30783-w