The ground states of two types of distorted mixed diamond chains with spins 1 and 1/2 are investigated using exact diagonalization, DMRG, and mapping onto low-energy effective models. In the undistorted case, the ground state consists of an array of independent spin-1 clusters separated by singlet dimers. The lattice distortion induces an effective interaction between cluster spins. When this effective interaction is antiferromagnetic, several Haldane phases appear with or without spontaneous translational symmetry breakdown (STSB). The transition between the Haldane phase without STSB and that with
(n+1)-fold STSB (
n = 1, 2, and 3) belongs to the same universality class as the
(n+1)-clock model. In contrast, when the effective interaction is ferromagnetic, the quantized and partial ferrimagnetic phases appear with or without STSB. An effective low-energy theory for the partial ferrimagnetic phase is presented.
The Kubo–Martin–Schwinger (KMS) condition is a well-founded general definition of equilibrium states on quantum systems. The time invariance property of equilibrium states is one of its basic consequences. From the time invariance of any equilibrium state it follows that the spontaneous breakdown of time-translation symmetry is impossible. Moreover, triviality of the temporal long-range order is derived from the KMS condition. Therefore, the manifestation of genuine quantum time crystals is impossible as long as the standard notion of spontaneous symmetry breakdown is considered.