We analyze a new class of time-periodic nonreciprocal dynamics in interacting chaotic classical spin systems, whose equations of motion are conservative (phase-space-volume-preserving) yet possess no symplectic structure. As a result, the dynamics of the system cannot be derived from any time-dependent Hamiltonian. In the high-frequency limit, we find that the magnetization dynamics features a long-lived metastable plateau, whose duration is controlled by the fourth power of the drive frequency. However, due to the lack of an effective Hamiltonian, the prethermal state the system evolves into cannot be understood within the framework of the canonical ensemble. We propose a Hamiltonian extension of the system using auxiliary degrees of freedom, in which the original spins constitute an open yet nondissipative subsystem. This allows us to perturbatively derive effective equations of motion that manifestly display symplecticity breaking at leading order in the inverse frequency. We thus extend the notion of prethermal dynamics, observed in the high-frequency limit of periodically-driven systems, to nonreciprocal systems.
Periodically driven (Floquet) systems are said to prethermalize when their energy absorption is very slow for long time. This effect was first discovered in quantum spin models, where the heating rate is exponentially small in the ratio between the driving frequency and the spin bandwidth. Recently, it was shown that prethermalization occurs also in classical systems with an infinite bandwidth. Here, we address the open question of which small parameter controls the lifetime of the prethermal state in these systems. We, first, numerically study the dependence of the lifetime on the initial con…
It is proved that the energy absorption in a periodically driven classical spin system is exponentially slow in frequency, which results in a two-step relaxation called the Floquet prethermalization. This result is shown by establishing the classical limit of the quantum spin dynamics. The Floquet prethermal state is well described by the Gibbs ensemble with respect to the static effective Hamiltonian obtained by a truncation of the Floquet-Magnus expansion. On the other hand, the same effective Hamiltonian does not reproduce the local dynamics for an exponentially long time. This is due to th…
We establish some general dynamical properties of lattice many-body systems that are subject to a high-frequency periodic driving. We prove that such systems have a quasi-conserved extensive quantity $H_*$, which plays the role of an effective static Hamiltonian. The dynamics of the system (e.g., evolution of any local observable) is well-approximated by the evolution with the Hamiltonian $H_*$ up to time $τ_*$, which is exponentially long in the driving frequency. We further show that the energy absorption rate is exponentially small in the driving frequency. In cases where $H_*$ is ergodic, …
We reveal a continuous dynamical heating transition between a prethermal and an infinite-temperature stage in a clean, chaotic periodically driven classical spin chain. The transition time is a steep exponential function of the drive frequency, showing that the exponentially long-lived prethermal plateau, originally observed in quantum Floquet systems, survives the classical limit. Even though there is no straightforward generalization of Floquet's theorem to nonlinear systems, we present strong evidence that the prethermal physics is well described by the inverse-frequency expansion. We relat…
We investigate a class of periodically driven many-body systems that allows us to extend the phenomenon of prethermalization to the vicinity of isolated intermediate-to-low drive frequencies away from the high-frequency limit. We provide numerical evidence for the formation of a parametrically long-lived prethermal plateau, captured by an effective Floquet Hamiltonian computed using the replica inverse-frequency expansion, and demonstrate its stability w.r.t.~random perturbations in the drive period. Considering exclusively nonintegrable Floquet Hamiltonians, we find that heating rates are non…
Prethermalization refers to the transient phenomenon where a system thermalizes according to a Hamiltonian that is not the generator of its evolution. We provide here a rigorous framework for quantum spin systems where prethermalization is exhibited for very long times. First, we consider quantum spin systems under periodic driving at high frequency $ν$. We prove that up to a quasi-exponential time $τ_* \sim e^{c \fracν{\log^3 ν}}$, the system barely absorbs energy. Instead, there is an effective local Hamiltonian $\hat D$ that governs the time evolution up to $τ_*$, and hence this effective H…
We study the dynamics of periodically-kicked many-body systems away from the high-frequency regime, and discuss a family of Floquet systems where the notion of prethermalization can be naturally extended to intermediate and low driving frequencies. We investigate numerically the dynamics of both integrable and nonintegrable systems, and report on the formation of a long-lived prethermal plateau, akin to the high-frequency limit, where the system thermalizes with respect to an effective Hamiltonian captured by the inverse-frequency expansion (IFE). Unlike the high-frequency regime, we find that…
Periodically driven Floquet quantum systems provide a promising platform to investigate novel physics out of equilibrium. Unfortunately, the drive generically heats up the system to a featureless infinite temperature state. For large driving frequency, the heat absorption rate is predicted to be exponentially small, giving rise to a long-lived prethermal regime which exhibits all the intriguing properties of Floquet systems. Here we experimentally observe Floquet prethermalization using nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. We first show the relaxation of a far-from-equilibrium initial state …
We demonstrate that the prethermal regime of periodically driven (Floquet), classical many-body systems can host nonequilibrium phases of matter. In particular, we show that there exists an effective Hamiltonian that captures the dynamics of ensembles of classical trajectories despite the breakdown of this description at the single trajectory level. In addition, we prove that the effective Hamiltonian can host emergent symmetries protected by the discrete time-translation symmetry of the drive. The spontaneous breaking of such an emergent symmetry leads to a subharmonic response, characteristi…
We discuss the universal nature of relaxation in isolated many-body quantum systems subjected to global and strong periodic driving. Our rigorous Floquet analysis shows that the energy of the system remains almost constant up to an exponentially long time in frequency for arbitrary initial states and that an effective Hamiltonian obtained by a truncation of the Floquet-Magnus expansion is a quasi-conserved quantity for long time scale. These two general properties lead to intriguing classification on the initial stage of relaxation, one of which is similar to the prethermalization phenomenon i…
Long-range interacting systems such as nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond and trapped ions serve as useful experimental setups to probe a range of nonequilibrium many-body phenomena. In particular, via driving, various effective Hamiltonians with physics potentially quite distinct from short-range systems can be realized. In this Letter, we derive general bounds on the linear response energy absorption rates of periodically driven systems of spins or fermions with long-range interactions that are sign changing and fall off as $1/r^α$ with $α> d/2$. We show that the disordered averaged energy …
From stable periodic orbits to many-body chaos: doubly tunable prethermalization via engineering of an emergent band structure
State Key Laboratory of Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics, School of Physics, Peking University（北京大学物理学院人工微结构和介观物理国家重点实验室）；Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems（马克斯·普朗克复杂系统物理研究所）；Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学卡文迪许实验室）；Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Natural Sciences, Physics Department（慕尼黑工业大学自然科学院物理系）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）
This work explores a fundamental dynamical structure for a wide range of many-body quantum systems under periodic driving. Generically, in the thermodynamic limit, such systems are known to heat up to infinite temperature states after infinite-time evolution, irrespective of dynamical details. In the present study, instead of considering infinitely long-time scale, we aim to provide a framework to understand the long but finite time behavior, namely the transient dynamics. In the analysis, we focus on the Floquet-Magnus (FM) expansion that gives a formal expression of the effective Hamiltonian…
It is well understood that many-body systems driven at high frequency heat up only exponentially slowly and exhibit a long prethermalization regime. We prove rigorously that a certain relevant class of systems heat very slowly under weak periodic driving at intermediate frequency as well. This class of systems are those whose time-dependent, possibly translation-invariant, Hamiltonian is a weak perturbation of a sum of mutually commuting terms. This condition covers several periodically kicked systems that have been considered in the literature recently, in particular kicked Ising models. In c…
We study heating dynamics in isolated quantum many-body systems driven periodically at high frequency and large amplitude. Combining the high-frequency expansion for the Floquet Hamiltonian with Fermi's golden rule (FGR), we develop a master equation termed the Floquet FGR. Unlike the conventional one, the Floquet FGR correctly describes heating dynamics, including the prethermalization regime, even for strong drives, under which the Floquet Hamiltonian is significantly dressed, and nontrivial Floquet engineering is present. The Floquet FGR depends on system size only weakly, enabling us to an…
A tremendous amount of recent attention has focused on characterizing the dynamical properties of periodically driven many-body systems. Here, we use a novel numerical tool termed `density matrix truncation' (DMT) to investigate the late-time dynamics of large-scale Floquet systems. We find that DMT accurately captures two essential pieces of Floquet physics, namely, prethermalization and late-time heating to infinite temperature. Moreover, by implementing a spatially inhomogeneous drive, we demonstrate that an interplay between Floquet heating and diffusive transport is crucial to understandi…
Discrete time crystals represent a paradigmatic nonequilibrium phase of periodically driven matter. Protecting its emergent spatiotemporal order necessitates a mechanism that hinders the spreading of defects, such as localization of domain walls in disordered quantum spin chains. In this work, we establish the effectiveness of a different mechanism arising in clean spin chains: the confinement of domain walls into ``mesonic'' bound states. We consider translationally invariant quantum Ising chains periodically kicked at arbitrary frequency, and discuss two possible routes to domain-wall confin…
In periodically-driven quantum systems, resonances can induce exotic nonequilibrium behavior and new phases of matter without static analog. We report on the emergence of fractional and integer resonances in a broad class of many-body Hamiltonians with a modulated hopping with a frequency that is either a fraction or an integer of the on-site interaction. We contend that there is a fundamental difference between these resonances when interactions bring the system to a Floquet prethermal state. Second-order processes dominate the dynamics in the fractional resonance case, leading to less entang…
The conventional framework for defining and understanding phases of matter requires thermodynamic equilibrium. Extensions to non-equilibrium systems have led to surprising insights into the nature of many-body thermalization and the discovery of novel phases of matter, often catalyzed by driving the system periodically. The inherent heating from such Floquet drives can be tempered by including strong disorder in the system, but this can also mask the generality of non-equilibrium phases. In this work, we utilize a trapped-ion quantum simulator to observe signatures of a non-equilibrium driven …
Prethermalization, where quasi-steady states are realized in the intermediate long time regime (prethermal regime), in periodically driven (Floquet) systems is an important phenomenon since it provides a platform of nontrivial Floquet many-body physics. In this Letter, we consider Floquet systems with dual energy scales: the Hamiltonian consists of two different terms whose amplitude is either comparable or much smaller than the frequency. As a result, when the larger-amplitude drive induces a $\mathbb{Z}_N$ symmetry operation, we obtain the effective static Hamiltonian respecting a new emerge…
