Frank Wilczek referenced this topic – time crystals – in his latest book (Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality).
Time crystals are physical systems that spontaneously settle into stable loops of behavior. I proposed this concept in 2012, and many interesting examples have been discovered since then, both theoretically and experimentally.
A recent example is close to my heart: It may be possible to orchestrate large numbers of atoms, cooperating within a new state of matter that I predicted and that was subsequently observed — a “time crystal” — to improve on the accuracy of single-atom atomic clocks. – Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals. Penguin Publishing Group. 2021. Kindle Edition.
Recent references on the topic inspired this post. Like “Black Holes,” another zippy name for a peculiar phenomenon. In condensed matter physics. And yet another behavior related to expanding research in quasiparticles.
Wiki:
A common crystal form is an atomic lattice structure that extends in all directions with a great deal of symmetry, but not perfectly so. Its asymmetry—known amongst researchers as symmetry breaking—occurs in crystals even though the laws of physics are spatially symmetrical. As the laws of physics are symmetrical in time as well as space, the question arose as to whether it is possible to break symmetry temporally and thus create a “time crystal” resistant to entropy. A discrete time crystal has in fact been observed in physics laboratories as early as 2016. One example of a time crystal which demonstrates non-equilibrium, broken time symmetry is a constantly rotating ring of charged ions in an otherwise lowest-energy state.
Here’s a recent article, which includes a brief recap and visualization of this phenomenon.
• Sci Tech Daily > “See World’s First Video of a Space-Time Crystal” by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (February 24, 2021)
• YouTube > MaxPlanckSociety > Space-Time Crystal (Feb 11, 2021)
A team of researchers [published in the Physical Review Letters] has succeeded in creating a micrometer-sized space-time crystal consisting of magnons at room temperature. With the help of an ultra-precise X-ray microscope [/ camera, imaging at up to 40 billion frames per second], they were able to capture the recurring [pattern of] periodic magnetization structure in a movie.
In their experiment, Gruszecki and Träger [Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems] placed a strip of magnetic material on a microscopic antenna through which they sent a radio-frequency current. This microwave field triggered an oscillating magnetic field, a source of energy that stimulated the magnons in the strip – the quasiparticle of a spin wave. Magnetic waves migrated into the strip from left and right, spontaneously condensing into a recurring pattern in space and time. Unlike trivial standing waves, this pattern was formed before the two converging waves could even meet and interfere. The pattern, which regularly disappears and reappears on its own, must therefore be a quantum effect.
Analogies for quasiparticles?
• Britannica > Quasiparticle
[See Related posts (below) re “particles” as defects in a medium.]
• Ask Mathemmatician > “What are quasi-particles? Why do phonons and photons have such similar names?” (posted on July 22, 2013 by The Physicist)
Visual: the missing tile puzzle
And phonons.
Related posts
• Comments > A force-less physics?