Time Crystals as Passively Protected Oscillating Qubits
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.20269 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 23 Feb 2026] Title:Time Crystals as Passively Protected Oscillating Qubits Authors:Mert Esencan, A.I. Lvovsky, Berislav Buča View a PDF of the paper titled Time Crystals as Passively Protected Oscillating Qubits, by Mert Esencan and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Protecting information against decoherence in open quantum systems remains a central challenge for quantum computing. In particular, passive error correction schemes have so far been limited to static memories rather than dynamical qubits. We demonstrate that a driven-dissipative bosonic system can encode a persistently oscillating qubit within a noiseless subsystem, realized explicitly in the Bose-Hubbard dimer (BHD). The strong parity symmetry of the model leads to degenerate stationary states. This symmetry is further broken into non-stationary states in the thermodynamic limit, which exhibit persistent oscillations. As the driving force increases, the Liouvillian spectrum of these states features a phase transition. Above the transition point, the non-stationary state encodes quantum information, preserving it in a noiseless subsystem. In addition to global loss that affects both bosonic modes identically, we further add global dephasing and show that the oscillating qubit is preserved. Finally, in order to gain additional physical insight, we study the effect of phase perturbation to both modes and observe that likewise they are passively protected, returning approximately to their initial configurations. These results establish dissipative time-crystalline dynamics as a mechanism for passive protection of dynamical quantum information, enabling autonomously stabilized oscillating qubits. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2602.20269 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.20269v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.20269 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Mert Esencan [view email] [v1] Mon, 23 Feb 2026 19:01:02 UTC (13,155 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Time Crystals as Passively Protected Oscillating Qubits, by Mert Esencan and 2 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)