A team experimentally observed higher-order and fractional discrete time crystals (DTCs) in periodically driven Rydberg atomic dissipative systems. Their study was published in Nature Communications. The team was led by Prof. Ding Dongsheng from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a key mechanism for explaining phase transitions in matter and is responsible for the formation of ordered structures such as spatial crystals. Time crystals have made considerable progress in theory and experiment since they were proposed by Nobel Prize winner Professor Frank Wilczek.
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