Prof Shivaji Sondhi's work featured in Physics highlights of 2021

Research by Professor Shivaji Sondhi and his collaborators has been named as one of the Physics highlights of the year by both the American Physical Society's Physics magazine and Quanta Magazine. 

The research, published in Nature in November 2021, details the creation of a time crystal using Google’s Sycamore quantum computing hardware, realising a 2015 theoretical proposal by Professor Sondhi and collaborators. A time crystal repeats its structure in time and, importantly, does so infinitely and without any further input of energy - thereby evading the second law of thermodynamics. 

Professor Sondhi, who joined New College as Wykeham Professor of Physics last year, said: 

'The rise of highly controllable quantum platforms is an exciting development for Physics and not just for computing. Google's experiment shows that one can realize phenomena on these that do not arise in existing systems, natural and artificial.'

Professor Shivaji Sondhi