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Equilibration and order in quantum Floquet matter

Nature Physics volume 13, pages 424–428 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Equilibrium thermodynamics is characterized by two fundamental ideas: thermalization—that systems approach a late time thermal state; and phase structure—that thermal states exhibit singular changes as various parameters characterizing the system are changed. We summarize recent progress that has established generalizations of these ideas to periodically driven, or Floquet, closed quantum systems. This has resulted in the discovery of entirely new phases which exist only out of equilibrium, such as the π-spin glass/Floquet time crystal.

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Figure 1: Eigenstate properties in a local observable (density on a site) in a system of 1D hardcore bosons at half filling.
Figure 2: Floquet phases and their signatures in spectrum and correlators.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank A. Das, D. Huse, C. von Keyserlingk, V. Khemani, A. Lazarides and A. Polkovnikov for many useful discussions and for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the NSF-DMR via Grant No. 1311781 and the Alexander von Humboldt foundation via a Humboldt award (S.L.S.) as well as the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via SFB 1143 (R.M.).

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  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, 01187 Dresden, Germany

    R. Moessner

  2. Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

    S. L. Sondhi

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Correspondence to R. Moessner.

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Moessner, R., Sondhi, S. Equilibration and order in quantum Floquet matter. Nature Phys 13, 424–428 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys4106

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