Discrete time crystal and perfect many-body tunneling in a periodically driven Heisenberg spin chain

Abstract

We investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of a Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain driven by a periodic magnetic field. Based on its instantaneous integrability and inherent symmetry, we analytically study the magnetization and many-body tunneling (MBT). Both of them exhibit periodicity distinct from the driving period. The magnetization is shown to be independent of the initial state and robust against perturbations, signaling the formation of discrete time crystal (DTC) order. The DTC phase is found to be continuously tunable through magnetic field. The system exhibits perfect MBT, manifested as exactly vanishing Loschmidt echo (LE) thus divergent LE rate function at half period of the DTC. Remarkably, the perfect MBT is independent of the system size, and can be traced to an effective gap closure induced by quantum geometric effects. Furthermore, the Loschmidt echo spectra entropy shows logarithmic-dependence on system size, consistent with non-thermal nature of the DTC phase. We propose a protocol using ultracold atoms for experimental realization of the DTC and MBT.