Period multiplication cascade at the order-by-disorder transition in uniaxial random field XY magnets

Uniaxial random field disorder induces a spontaneous transverse magnetization in the XY model. Adding a rotating driving field, we find a critical point attached to the number of driving cycles needed to complete a limit cycle, the first discovery of this phenomenon in a magnetic system. Near the critical drive, time crystal behavior emerges, in which the period of the limit cycles becomes an integer n > 1 multiple of the driving period. The period n can be engineered via specific disorder patterns. Because n generically increases with system size, the resulting period multiplication cascade is reminiscent of that occurring in amorphous solids subject to oscillatory shear near the onset of plastic deformation, and of the period bifurcation cascade near the onset of chaos in nonlinear systems, suggesting it is part of a larger class of phenomena in transitions of dynamical systems. Applications include magnets, electron nematics, and quantum gases.