Long-lived topological time-crystalline order on a quantum processor
Topologically ordered phases of matter elude Landau's symmetry-breaking theory, featuring a variety of intriguing properties such as long-range entanglement and intrinsic robustness against local perturbations. Their extension to periodically driven systems gives rise to exotic new phenomena that are forbidden in thermal equilibrium. Here, we report the observation of signatures of such a phenomenon-a prethermal topologically ordered time crystal-with programmable superconducting qubits arranged on a square lattice. By periodically driving the superconducting qubits with a surface code Hamiltonian, we observe discrete time-translation symmetry breaking dynamics that is only manifested in the subharmonic temporal response of nonlocal logical operators. We further connect the observed dynamics to the underlying topological order by measuring a nonzero topological entanglement entropy and studying its subsequent dynamics. Our results demonstrate the potential to explore exotic topologically ordered nonequilibrium phases of matter with noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors.
Authors
- Ziqi Tan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8858-2193)
- Alexey Vyacheslavovich Gorshkov (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0509-3421)
- Yiren Zou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2838-9552)
- Aosai Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0599-5361)
- Jinfeng Deng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4076-1608)
- Norman Y. Yao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0194-7266)
- Zhen Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6369-8010)
- Zheng-Zhi Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7370-4525)
- Hang Dong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1852-4094)
- Fangli Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5690-4995)
- Chao Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1853-9392)
- Tingting Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6589-3706)
- Hekang Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3914-4979)
- Chuanyu Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4710-1752)
- Yaozu Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1137-4660)
- Liang Xiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8539-9510)
- Dong-Ling Deng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1042-4646)
- Qiujiang Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1093-3405)
- Zehang Bao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9164-714X)
- Pengfei Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8908-4228)
- Yu Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4138-8983)
- Feitong Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0789-8207)
- Francisco Machado (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0068-5073)
- Fanhao Shen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5289-419X)
- H. Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5380-4297)
- Xuhao Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1318-8367)
- Jiarun Zhong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-3631-6774)
- Si Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3441-4140)
- Zitian Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8219-2311)
- Thomas Iadecola (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5145-6441)
- Wenjie Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6537-8712)
- Ke Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0307-5457)
- Jiachen Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6444-2416)
- Zhide Lu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6087-5138)
- Zhexuan Gong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9018-7865)
- Zhengyi Cui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-5534-5167)
- Shibo Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8546-4255)
- Xu Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6102-0035)
- Weikang Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7137-5390)
- Zixuan Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1089-9251)
- Ning Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3884-9997)
Institutions
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Colorado School of Mines (US)
- Iowa State University (US)
- Ames National Laboratory (US)
- Hefei University (CN)
- Hefei National Center for Physical Sciences at Nanoscale (CN)
- Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (US)
- QuEra Computing (United States) (US)
- Zhejiang Lab (CN)
- Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US)
- Shanghai Huayi Group (China) (CN)
- Joint Quantum Institute (US)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-10-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-53077-9
- Citations
- 20
- Primary Topic
- Quantum many-body systems
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.75
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Harvard University
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Tsinghua University
- Zhejiang University
- Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Harvard University
- Division of Materials Research
- Army Research Office
- Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province