Discrete time crystals in one-dimensional classical Floquet systems with nearest-neighbor interactions
Phys. Rev. B 112, 134313 – Published 27 October, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/7h9c-2n8w
Abstract
Prethermal discrete time crystals (PDTCs), an emergent nonequilibrium phase of matter, have been studied in two- and higher-dimensional lattices with nearest-neighbor (NN) interactions and one-dimensional (1D) lattices with long-range interactions. However, different from prethermalization that can be observed in 1D Floquet classical spin systems with NN interactions, classical PDTCs in Floquet 1D systems with only NN interactions have not been proposed before. Here, we demonstrate the emergence of disorder-free discrete time crystals (DTCs) in 1D Floquet classical spin systems with NN interactions. We show that the thermalization time first grows exponentially as the driving frequency increases and is then saturated, which depends on the energy density of the initial state. Since thermalization of the effective Hamiltonian is slow, there is no typical prethermalization and PDTCs in the Floquet system before final thermalization. The robustness of DTC order is verified by introducing imperfect spin flip operations. Our work provides an exploration of quantum characteristics, when considering the classical counterparts of quantum phenomena, and will be helpful for further investigations of both classical and quantum prethermal systems and discrete time-crystalline order.
