title: Stroboscopic prethermalization in weakly interacting periodically driven systems.
abstract: Time-periodic driving provides a promising route toward engineering nontrivial states in quantum many-body systems. However, while it has been shown that the dynamics of integrable, noninteracting systems can synchronize with the driving into a nontrivial periodic motion, generic nonintegrable systems are expected to heat up until they display a trivial infinite-temperature behavior. In this paper we show that a quasiperiodic time evolution over many periods can also emerge in weakly interacting systems, with a clear separation of the timescales for synchronization and the eventual approach of the infinite-temperature state. This behavior is the analog of prethermalization in quenched systems. The synchronized state can be described using a macroscopic number of approximate constants of motion. We corroborate these findings with numerical simulations for the driven Hubbard model.
authors: Max Planck Research Department for Structural Dynamics, University of Hamburg-CFEL, Hamburg, Germany.
authors: Elena
authors: E
authors: Canovi
authors: Institut für Physik, Theoretische Physik III, Center for Electronic Correlations and Magnetism, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany.
authors: Marcus
authors: M
authors: Kollar
authors: Max Planck Research Department for Structural Dynamics, University of Hamburg-CFEL, Hamburg, Germany.
authors: Martin
authors: M
authors: Eckstein