3 ms·
This is a great question. (I am the first author on the "Floquet time crystals" paper referred to btw). The analogy is not perfect because what actually happens
by cortiver 10y ago
This is a great question. (I am the first author on the "Floquet time crystals" paper referred to btw). The analogy is not perfect because what actually happens to a spin-1/2 particle under a 360 degree rotation is it comes back to the same configuration, but its wavefunction picks up a quantum phase factor of (-1), which is not observable. On the other hand, a Floquet time crystal does actually does go to an observably different state under a time shift. The best analogy is really to, for example, a magnet, which does go to an observably different state if you rotate it (because the north and south poles rotate).