Harmonic Control of Dynamical Freezing in Programmable Rydberg Atom Arrays

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the experimental realization of dynamical freezing in large Rydberg atom arrays, identifies heating processes that limit stability, and introduces a dual-parameter modulation technique to enhance freezing robustness.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental observation of dynamical freezing in large-scale Rydberg arrays and develops a dual-parameter modulation method to improve its stability.

Findings

Single-frequency driving suppresses excitation dynamics but is limited to narrow parameter regimes.

Heating processes due to interactions destabilize the freezing behavior.

Dual-parameter modulation broadens the freezing regime and enhances robustness.

Abstract

Periodic driving enables the engineering of complex quantum matter, yet in interacting systems it generically leads to energy absorption, which limits the lifetime of the engineered states. To address this challenge, dynamical freezing has been proposed as a mechanism for stabilizing non-equilibrium states over parametrically long timescales. While theory predicts robust freezing under simplifying assumptions, realistic platforms inevitably include additional interaction processes that alter its stability. Here, we report the experimental observation of dynamical freezing in programmable Rydberg atom arrays of up to 100 atoms in one and two dimensions. We find that while single-frequency driving produces pronounced suppression of excitation dynamics, the freezing behavior is restricted to a narrow parameter regime due to interaction-induced heating channels present in realistic simulators. Using a perturbative Floquet analysis of the fully interacting atomic system, we identify the dominant microscopic heating processes responsible for this destabilization. Leveraging this understanding, we design a dual-parameter modulation of detuning and Rabi frequency that coherently cancels these absorption pathways and substantially broadens the freezing regime, making it also robust across different geometries. Our results reveal how heating processes shape the stability of dynamical freezing in interacting Floquet systems and demonstrates a route to control driven many-body dynamics in realistic experimental platforms.