Floquet-induced suppression of thermalization in a quasiperiodic Ising chain

Abstract

Many-body localized (MBL) systems are known to thermalize in periodically driven systems. In this work, we demonstrate that under proper driving protocol, this thermalization this thermalization can be resisted such that the MBL phase turns into a non-ergodic extended phase, known as the many-body critical (MBC) phase. Considering a kicked quasiperiodic Ising chain, we show that while at high-frequency driving the ergodic, MBL, and the MBC phases coexist, at moderate driving frequencies the MBL phase is completely suppressed and the MBC phase proliferates in the parameter space. Using quasienergy statistics, Floquet eigenstates, autocorrelation dynamics, and entanglement growth, we characterize the emergent phases and identify non-monotonic signatures revealing richness of the nonergodic phases. Our results establish Floquet driving as a powerful route to stabilizing nonergodic extended many-body phases beyond the conventional Floquet-MBL paradigm.