Discrete Time-Crystalline Order in Cavity and Circuit QED Systems

Discrete time crystals are a recently proposed and experimentally observed dynamical phase of out-of-equilibrium Floquet systems, where the stroboscopic evolution of a local observable repeats itself at an integer multiple of the driving period. We address this issue in a driven-dissipative setup, focusing on the modulated open Dicke model, which is readily implemented by cavity and circuit QED systems. In the thermodynamic limit, we employ semiclassical approaches and find unexpectedly rich dynamical phases with different types of discrete time-crystalline order, which can be well explained by bifurcation theory. In a deep quantum regime with few qubits, we find clear signatures of a transient discrete time-crystalline order, which is absent in the isolated counterpart. Our work generalizes the notion of time crystals to open systems and proposes experimental implementation of discrete time-crystalline order with cold atoms and superconducting qubits under driving and dissipation.