Resonant thermalization of periodically driven strongly correlated electrons

Abstract

We study the dynamics of the Fermi-Hubbard model driven by a time-periodic modulation of the interaction within nonequilibrium Dynamical Mean-Field Theory. For moderate interaction, we find clear evidence of thermalization to a genuine infinite-temperature state with no residual oscillations. Quite differently, in the strongly correlated regime, we find a quasi-stationary extremely long-lived state with oscillations synchronized with the drive (Floquet prethermalization). Remarkably, the nature of this state dramatically changes upon tuning the drive frequency. In particular, we show the existence of a critical frequency at which the system rapidly thermalizes despite the large interaction. We characterize this resonant thermalization and provide an analytical understanding in terms of a break down of the periodic Schrieffer-Wolff transformation.