Emergent finite frequency criticality of driven-dissipative correlated lattice bosons

Critical points and phase transitions are characterized by diverging susceptibilities, reflecting the tendency of the system toward spontaneous symmetry breaking. Equilibrium statistical mechanics bounds these instabilities to occur at zero frequency, giving rise to static order parameters. In this work we argue that a prototype model of correlated driven-dissipative lattice bosons, of direct relevance for upcoming generation of circuit QED arrays experiments, exhibits a susceptibility sharply diverging at a finite nonzero frequency, which is an emerging scale set by interactions and nonequilibrium effects. In the broken-symmetry phase the corresponding macroscopic order parameter becomes nonstationary and oscillates in time without damping, thus breaking continuous time-translational symmetry. Our work, connecting breaking of time translational invariance to divergent finite frequency susceptibilities, which are of direct physical relevance, could potentially be extended to study other time-domain instabilities in nonequilibrium quantum systems, including Floquet time crystals and quantum synchronization.