Are all dissipative time crystals fragile?

Junio 12, 2026

10:30

Are all dissipative time crystals fragile?

Where and when

Date

Junio 12, 2026

10:30

Location

Parc Cientific, Universitat de València

Featured speakers

Prof. Carlos Navarrete-Benlloch

Read bio

Carlos studied Theoretical Physics at the University of Valencia, Spain, where he got his PhD in 2011, partially developed at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics (MPQ, Germany) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). In 2012 he joined Ignacio Cirac’s theory division at MPQ and in 2016 he became Research Group Leader within Florian Marquardt’s theory division at the Max-Planck Institute for the Science of Light. After 5 years as an Associate Professor at the Wilczek Quantum Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in January 2024 he returned to the University of Valencia as a Distinguished Researcher and Lecturer. His research lies at the interface between quantum optics, many-body physics, and quantum information. He is also a dedicated musician, regularly performing his own contemporary-guitar compositions. Find more info at www.carlosnb.com.

Time crystals are exotic phases of matter that spontaneously break time-translation symmetry, exhibiting robust periodic dynamics even in the presence of fluctuations, including quantum noise [1]. They can be understood as temporal analogues of spatial crystals, with order unfolding in time rather than space. Since their existence at thermal equilibrium remains uncertain, attention has shifted to out-of-equilibrium settings, particularly driven–dissipative platforms, where time-crystalline behavior can emerge as a stable asymptotic state.

It has been proposed that dissipative time crystals may arise in small systems, such as a few harmonic oscillators or optical cavity modes. Here, however, we show that such systems are not robust against perturbations like dephasing or nonlinearities. Rather than genuine phases of matter, they are better interpreted as mathematical analogues that serve as useful toy models.

Motivated by this limitation, we conjecture that extended systems are required to sustain true time-crystalline order, as many-body mechanisms can protect against local fluctuations. We test this idea by introducing local dephasing in widely studied spin models and find that only a small subset remains robust.

These results support robustness against local noise as a defining criterion for dissipative time crystals and indicate that genuine time-crystalline order relies on intrinsically many-body effects. Consequently, small or structurally simple systems lack the necessary ingredients to sustain true time-crystalline behavior, including several models previously proposed in the literature.