标题： 时空晶体来自粒子状拓扑孤子 显示英文标题

标题： Space-time crystals from particle-like topological solitons

摘要： 时间晶体是意外的物质状态，它们以离散或连续的方式自发地打破时间平移对称性。 然而，尚未有报道关于同时打破空间和时间对称性的介观尺度时空晶体。 在这里，我们报告了一种由环境电源、恒定强度无结构光驱动的向列相液晶中的连续时空晶体。 我们数值构建的四维构型与这些实验结果有很好的一致性。 虽然满足识别时间晶体序的既定标准，但实验和计算机模拟都揭示了一种由类似粒子的拓扑孤子形成的时空晶体相。 其对时间扰动和时空错位的鲁棒性表明了所研究的时空晶体的稳定性和刚性，这与它们局部拓扑性质以及出现的自发扭曲、类似粒子的孤子构建块之间的多体相互作用有关。 它们潜在的技术应用包括光学器件、光子时空晶体发生器、电信以及防伪设计等。 显示英文摘要

摘要： Time crystals are unexpected states of matter that spontaneously break time translation symmetry either in a discrete or continuous manner. However, spatially-mesoscale space-time crystals that break both the space and time symmetries have not been reported. Here we report a continuous space-time crystal in a nematic liquid crystal driven by ambient-power, constant-intensity unstructured light. Our numerically constructed 4-dimensional configurations exhibit good agreement with these experimental findings. While meeting the established criteria to identify time-crystalline order, both experiments and computer simulations reveal a space-time crystallization phase formed by particle-like topological solitons. The robustness against temporal perturbations and spatiotemporal dislocations shows the stability and rigidity of the studied space-time crystals, which relates to their locally topological nature and many-body interactions between emergent spontaneously-twisted, particle-like solitonic building blocks. Their potential technological utility includes optical devices, photonic space-time crystal generators, telecommunications, and anti-counterfeiting designs, among others.