Periodically driving a many-body localized quantum system
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Publication Date
2017-05-03Journal Title
Nature Physics
ISSN
1745-2473
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Volume
13
Pages
460-464
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
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Bordia, P., Lüschen, H., Schneider, U., Knap, M., & Bloch, I. (2017). Periodically driving a many-body localized quantum system. Nature Physics, 13 460-464. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys4020
Abstract
Periodically driven quantum many-body systems can display rich dynamics and host exotic phases that are absent in their undriven counterparts. However, in the presence of interactions such systems are expected to eventually heat up to a simple infinite-temperature state. One possible exception is a periodically driven many-body localized system, in which heating is precluded by strong disorder. Here, we use a gas of ultracold fermionic potassium atoms in optical lattices to prepare and probe such a driven system and show that it is indeed stable for high enough driving frequency. Moreover, we find a novel regime in which the system is exceedingly stable even at low drive frequencies, a particular feature of our driving scheme. Our experimental findings are well supported by numerical simulations and may provide avenues for engineering novel phases in periodically driven matter.
Sponsorship
We acknowledge support from Technical University of Munich - Institute for Advanced Study, funded by the German Excellence Initiative and the European Union FP7 under grant agreement 291763, from the DFG grant no. KN 1254/1-1, the European Commission (UQUAM, AQuS) and the Nanosystems Initiative Munich (NIM).
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys4020
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/263585
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