Time-crystalline Topological Superconductors

Understand

Time crystals form when arbitrary physical states of a periodically driven system spontaneously break discrete time-translation symmetry.

• We introduce one-dimensional time-crystalline topological superconductors, for which time-translation symmetry breaking and topological physics intertwine---yielding anomalous Floquet Majorana modes that are not possible in free-fermion systems.
• Such a phase exhibits a bulk magnetization that returns to its original form after two drive periods, together with Majorana end modes that recover their initial form only after four drive periods.
• We propose experimental implementations and detection schemes for this new state.