Shattered time: can a dissipative time crystal survive many-body correlations?

We investigate the emergence of a time crystal (TC) in a driven dissipative many-body spin array. In this system the interplay between incoherent spin pumping and collective emission stabilizes a synchronized non-equilibrium steady state which in the thermodynamic limit features a self-generated time-periodic pattern imposed by collective elastic interactions. In contrast to prior realizations where the time symmetry is already broken by an...