New observation on the nature of geometry/structure of space(time):
Usually when a material is in ground state, also known as the zero-point energy
of a system, it means movement should theoretically be impossible,
because that would require it to expend energy.
But Wilczek predicted that this might not actually be the case for time crystals.
Normal crystals have an atomic structure that repeats in space - just like the
carbon lattice of a diamond. But, just like a ruby or a diamond, they're motionless
because they're in equilibrium in their ground state.
But time crystals have a structure that repeats in time, not just in space.
And it keep oscillating in its ground state.
Imagine it like jelly - when you tap it, it repeatedly jiggles. The same thing
happens in time crystals, but the big difference here is that the motion
occurs without any energy.
A time crystal is like constantly oscillating jelly in its natural, ground state,
and that's what makes it a whole new form of matter - non-equilibrium matter.
It's incapable of sitting still.
But it's one thing to predict these time crystals exist, it's another entirely
to make them, which is where the new study comes in.
Yao and his team have now come up with a detailed blueprint that describes
exactly how to make and measure the properties of a time crystal, and even
predict what the various phases surrounding the time crystals should be -
which means they've mapped out the equivalent of the solid, liquid, and
gas phases for the new form of matter.
Source:
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-just-announced-a-brand-new-form-of-matter-time-crystalsAnd the summary from the pre-print paper:
METHODS SUMMARY
Dynamical decoupling sequence.
We use a pair of Raman laser beams globally illuminat-
ing the entire ion chain to drive qubit rotations22. The
ion chain has 25 µm length, and we shape the beams
to have 200 µm full width half maximum along the ion
chain, resulting in 5% intensity inhomogeneity. When
a fixed duration is set for H1 in Eq. 1 of the main text,
the time dependent magnetization for different ions ac-
quire different evolution frequencies, resulting in the net
magnetization of the system dephasing after about 10
-pulses. In addition, the Raman laser has rms inten-
sity noise of about 1%, which restricts the spin-rotation
coherence to only about 30 -pulses (80% contrast).
Source:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.08684v1.pdf