# Periodically Driven Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev Models

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the heating and thermalization dynamics of a periodically driven generalized Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, revealing distinct behaviors in Fermi liquid and non-Fermi liquid regimes and discussing potential experimental implications.

## Contribution

The study introduces an exact field theoretic approach to analyze heating in a driven SYK model, uncovering how quasi-particles influence thermalization timescales.

## Key findings

- Non-Fermi liquids heat exponentially and thermalize rapidly.
- Heavy Fermi liquids resist heating and thermalize slowly.
- Distinct regimes of heating dynamics are identified.

## Abstract

Periodically driven quantum matter can realize exotic dynamical phases. In order to understand how ubiquitous and robust these phases are, it is pertinent to investigate the heating dynamics of generic interacting quantum systems. Here we study the thermalization in a periodically-driven generalized Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK)-model, which realizes a crossover from a heavy Fermi liquid (FL) to a non-Fermi liquid (NFL) at a tunable energy scale. Developing an exact field theoretic approach, we determine two distinct regimes in the heating dynamics. While the NFL heats exponentially and thermalizes rapidly, we report that the presence of quasi-particles in the heavy FL obstructs heating and thermalization over comparatively long time scales. Prethermal high-frequency dynamics and possible experimental realizations of non-equilibrium SYK physics are discussed as well.