Stroboscopic aliasing in long-range interacting quantum systems

Submission summary

 As Contributors: Shane Kelly Preprint link: scipost_202103_00022v2 Date accepted: 2021-08-26 Date submitted: 2021-08-20 13:27 Submitted by: Kelly, Shane Submitted to: SciPost Physics Core Academic field: Physics Specialties: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics - Theory Quantum Physics Approaches: Theoretical, Computational

Abstract

We unveil a mechanism for generating oscillations with arbitrary multiplets of the period of a given external drive, in long-range interacting quantum many-particle spin systems. These oscillations break discrete time translation symmetry as in time crystals, but they are understood via two intertwined stroboscopic effects similar to the aliasing resulting from video taping a single fast rotating helicopter blade. The first effect is similar to a single blade appearing as multiple blades due to a frame rate that is in resonance with the frequency of the helicopter blades' rotation; the second is akin to the optical appearance of the helicopter blades moving in reverse direction. Analogously to other dynamically stabilized states in interacting quantum many-body systems, this stroboscopic aliasing is robust to detuning and excursions from a chosen set of driving parameters, and it offers a novel route for engineering dynamical $n$-tuplets in long-range quantum simulators, with potential applications to spin squeezing generation and entangled state preparation.

Published as SciPost Phys. Core 4, 021 (2021)

Dear Editor and Referee,
Thank you for sending us the correspondence on our manuscript “Stroboscopic aliasing in
long-range-interacting quantum systems” scipost 202103 00022v1. We thank the referee
for their positive comments and constructive suggestions. We have made all the suggested changes and marked them in blue on the manuscript. We hope that, in the current form, our work will be found suitable for publication in Scipost.
Yours Sincerely,
Shane P. Kelly, Eddy Timmermans, Jamir Marino, Shan-Wen Tsai

List of changes

Major changes are highlighted in blue and are discussed in the response to the referees comments and suggestions.