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Physics World April 2022

Physics World April 2022

Time crystals: the search for a new phase of matter

In physics, space and time are often interwoven, so if a collection of many particles can show spatial periodicity, it is perhaps not so strange to wonder if the same symmetry pattern can spontaneously emerge in time. That’s the idea behind “time crystals” – an elusive form of matter first predicted by Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek. In this issue, Pedram Roushan from Google’s Quantum AI team in California explains how time crystals could be simulated on the company’s Sycamore quantum processor.

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