Switching the Anomalous DC Response of an AC-driven Quantum Many-body system

Abstract

For a class of integrable quantum many-body systems, symmetric AC driving can generically produce a steady DC response. We show how such dynamical freezing can be switched off, not by forcing the system to follow the (arbitrarily fast) driving field, but rather through a much slower but complete oscillation of each individual mode of the system at a frequency of its own, with the slowest mode exhibiting a divergent period. This switching can be controlled in detail, its sharpness depending on a particular parameter of the Hamiltonian. The phenomenon has a robust manifestation even in the few-body limit, perhaps the most promising setting for realisation within existing frameworks.