Resonant thermalization of periodically driven strongly correlated electrons

TL;DR

This paper investigates the dynamics of the driven Fermi-Hubbard model, revealing a transition from thermalization to a long-lived Floquet prethermal state, with a critical frequency inducing rapid thermalization.

Contribution

It uncovers the phenomenon of resonant thermalization in strongly correlated electrons under periodic driving and provides an analytical explanation for this behavior.

Findings

Thermalization to infinite temperature at moderate interactions.

Existence of a long-lived Floquet prethermal state in the strongly correlated regime.

Identification of a critical drive frequency causing rapid thermalization.

Abstract

We study the dynamics of the Fermi-Hubbard model driven by a time-periodic modulation of the interaction within nonequilibrium Dynamical Mean-Field Theory. For moderate interaction, we find clear evidence of thermalization to a genuine infinite-temperature state with no residual oscillations. Quite differently, in the strongly correlated regime, we find a quasi-stationary extremely long-lived state with oscillations synchronized with the drive (Floquet prethermalization). Remarkably, the nature of this state dramatically changes upon tuning the drive frequency. In particular, we show the existence of a critical frequency at which the system rapidly thermalizes despite the large interaction. We characterize this resonant thermalization and provide an analytical understanding in terms of a break down of the periodic Schrieffer-Wolff transformation.