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Published on: November 11, 2013
AC Josephson effect between two superfluid time crystals
S Autti1,2, P J Heikkinen3,4, J T Mäkinen3,5,6
1Low Temperature Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland. s.autti@lancaster.ac.uk.
Abstract:
Quantum time crystals are systems characterized by spontaneously emerging periodic order in the time domain1. While originally a phase of broken time translation symmetry was a mere speculation2, a wide range of time crystals has been reported3-5. However, the dynamics and interactions between such systems have not been investigated experimentally. Here we study two adjacent quantum time crystals realized by two magnon condensates in superfluid 3He-B. We observe an exchange of magnons between the time crystals leading to opposite-phase oscillations in their populations-a signature of the AC Josephson effect6-while the defining periodic motion remains phase coherent throughout the experiment. Our results demonstrate that time crystals obey the general dynamics of quantum mechanics and offer a basis to further investigate the fundamental properties of these phases, opening pathways for possible applications in developing fields, such as quantum information processing.
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