Speaker: Norman Yao (Harvard University)
Title: What is a time crystal?
Abstract: The defining feature of a time crystal is that it oscillates, but so do many things in nature. In this talk, my main goal is to sharpen the question surrounding time crystals, and to provide some answers in the context of quantum many-body systems. Particular care will be taken to contextualize modern results on time crystals with subharmonic oscillations that are commonplace in non-linear dynamical systems. Time permitting, I will also try to survey recent experiments demonstrating the observation of time crystalline order in a variety of quantum simulation platforms.