When rare events control time-crystalline dynamics
Phys. Rev. B 113, 214302 – Published 1 June, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/2dtb-3vxg
Abstract
We investigate the effect of heavy-tailed control statistics on time crystals, driven many-body systems where subharmonic order is governed by fluctuations rather than Gaussian noise. We emphasize that this work does not introduce a new phase of matter, but instead characterizes the decay dynamics of subharmonic order under heavy-tailed control fluctuations. Lévy-distributed pulse errors lead to a nonanalytic scaling of the decay rate, providing a direct dynamical signature of rare-event fluctuations. When the drive timing is heavy tailed, renewal dynamics produces algebraic decay without a characteristic timescale. These results show that heavy-tailed control statistics place time-crystalline dynamics in a distinct dynamical regime governed by rare events rather than diffusive dephasing.
