Nonequilibrium steady states in the Floquet-Lindblad systems: van Vleck's high-frequency expansion approach

TL;DR

This paper develops a high-frequency expansion method to analyze nonequilibrium steady states in periodically driven dissipative quantum systems, enabling characterization without full time evolution solutions.

Contribution

It introduces a general high-frequency expansion framework for Floquet-Lindblad systems, applicable to various models and dissipation types, advancing the analysis of NESSs in quantum systems.

Findings

Validated the HF-expansion approach on NV centers and spin chains.

Showed NESSs can differ from Floquet-Gibbs states depending on dissipation.

Proposed dissipation-assisted THz inverse Faraday effect in quantum magnets.

Abstract

Nonequilibrium steady states (NESSs) in periodically driven dissipative quantum systems are vital in Floquet engineering. We develop a general theory for high-frequency drives with Lindblad-type dissipation to characterize and analyze NESSs based on the high-frequency (HF) expansion with linear algebraic numerics and without numerically solving the time evolution. This theory shows that NESSs can deviate from the Floquet-Gibbs state depending on the dissipation type. We show the validity and usefulness of the HF-expansion approach in concrete models for a diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center, a kicked open XY spin chain with topological phase transition under boundary dissipation, and the Heisenberg spin chain in a circularly-polarized magnetic field under bulk dissipation. In particular, for the isotropic Heisenberg chain, we propose the dissipation-assisted terahertz (THz) inverse Faraday effect in quantum magnets. Our theoretical framework applies to various time-periodic Lindblad equations that are currently under active research.