Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1909.08618 · Physical Review Research

Emergent black hole dynamics in critical Floquet systems

Bastien Lapierre, Kenny Choo, Clément Tauber, Apoorv Tiwari, Titus Neupert, R. Chitra

Published Apr 27, 2020• 61 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this paper the authors study a one-dimensional quantum chain subject to a periodic drive that alternates between two coupling profiles modulated in space. They discover the existence of a heating phase where all the excitations accumulate periodically at two specific points of the chain dubbed horizons, through an exact analogy with the ones from black holes. The system heats up by endlessly absorbing the energy of the drive in a non-homogeneous way along the two horizons.

DOI
10.1103/physrevresearch.2.023085

Related papers

Emergent black hole dynamics in critical Floquet systems

Bastien Lapierre, Kenny Choo, Clément Tauber +3 more

While driven interacting quantum matter is generically subject to heating and scrambling, certain classes of systems evade this paradigm. We study such an exceptional class in periodically driven critical (1+1)-dimensional systems with a spatially modulated but disorder-free time evolution operator. Instead of complete scrambling, the excitations of the system remain well defined. Their propagation is analogous to the evolution along light cones in a curved spacetime obtained by two black holes. The Hawking temperature serves as an order parameter which distinguishes between heating and nonheating phases. Beyond a timescale determined by the inverse Hawking temperature, excitations are absorbed by the black holes resulting in a singular concentration of energy at their horizon. We obtain these results analytically within conformal field theory, capitalizing on a mapping to sine-squared deformed field theories. Furthermore, by means of numerical calculations for an interacting XXZ spin-12 chain, we demonstrate that our findings survive lattice regularization.

•Jan 1, 2020•64 citations

Fine structure of heating in a quasiperiodically driven critical quantum system

Bastien Lapierre, Kenny Choo, Apoorv Tiwari +3 more

The authors study a one-dimensional critical quantum system subject to a Fibonacci quasiperiodic drive that alternates between two spatially modulated coupling profiles and find regions of fast heating as well as ultra-slow heating regions where the system remains non-heated within an experimentally accessible time.

arXiv:2006.10054•Physical Review Research•Sep 22, 2020•41 citations

Floquet conformal field theory

Xueda Wen, Jie-qiang Wu

Given a $generic$ two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT), we propose an analytically solvable setup to study the Floquet dynamics of the CFT, i.e., the dynamics of a CFT subject to a periodic driving. A complete phase diagram in the parameter space can be analytically obtained within our setup. We find two phases: the heating phase and the non-heating phase. In the heating phase, the entanglement entropy keeps growing linearly in time, indicating that the system keeps absorbing energy; in the non-heating phase, the entanglement entropy oscillates periodically in time, i.e., the system is not heated. At the phase transition, the entanglement entropy grows logarithmically in time in a universal way. Furthermore, we can obtain the critical exponent by studying the entanglement evolution near the phase transition. Mathematically, different phases (and phase transition) in a Floquet CFT correspond to different types of M$\ddot{\text{o}}$bius transformations.

arXiv:1805.00031•Apr 30, 2018•43 citations

Dynamical Phases of Higher Dimensional Floquet CFTs

Diptarka Das, Sumit R. Das, Arnab Kundu +1 more

This paper investigates the dynamical phases of Floquet Conformal Field Theories (CFTs) in space-time dimensions greater than two. Building upon our previous work [1] which introduced quaternionic representations for studying Floquet dynamics in higher dimensional CFTs, we now explore more general square pulse drive protocols that go beyond a single SU(1,1) subgroup. We demonstrate that, for multi-step drive protocols, the system exhibits distinct dynamical phases characterized by the nature of the eigenvalues of the quaternionic matrix representing time evolution in a single cycle, leading to different stroboscopic responses. Our analysis establishes a fundamental geometric interpretation where these dynamical phases directly correspond to the presence or absence of Killing horizons in the base space of the CFT and in a higher dimensional AdS space on which a putative dual lives. The heating phase is associated with a non-extremal horizon, the critical phase with an extremal horizon which disappears in the non-heating phase. We develop perturbative approaches to compute the Floquet Hamiltonians in different regimes and show, how tuning drive parameters can lead to horizons, providing a geometric framework for understanding heating phenomena in driven conformal systems.

arXiv:2504.00099•Mar 31, 2025•0 citations

Topology and Broken Symmetry in Floquet Systems

Fenner Harper, Rahul Roy, Mark Spencer Rudner +1 more

Floquet systems are governed by periodic, time-dependent Hamiltonians. Prima facie they should absorb energy from the external drives involved in modulating their couplings and heat up to infinite temperature. However, this unhappy state of affairs can be avoided in many ways. Instead, as has become clear from much recent work, Floquet systems can exhibit a variety of nontrivial behavior—some of which is impossible in undriven systems. In this review, we describe the main ideas and themes of this work: novel Floquet drives that exhibit nontrivial topology in single-particle systems, the existence and classification of exotic Floquet drives in interacting systems, and the attendant notion of many-body Floquet phases and arguments for their stability to heating.

arXiv:1905.01317•Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics•Dec 3, 2019•234 citations

Dynamical Phase Transitions in Periodically Driving 1D Ising Model

Yuanyuan Cheng, Yuxia Zhang, Tianhui Qiu +2 more

This work investigates dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) in a one-dimensional Ising model subjected to a periodically modulated transverse field. In contrast to sudden quenches, we demonstrate that a DQPT can be induced in two distinct ways. First, when the system remains within a given phase--ferromagnetic (FM) or paramagnetic (PM), a resonant periodic drive can trigger a DQPTs when its frequency matches the energy-level transition of the system. This DQPT is intimately connected to the emergence of Floquet topological phases. The timescale for the transition is governed by the perturbation strength $λ'$, the critical mode $k_c$, and its energy gap $Δ_{k_c}$, following the scaling relation $τ\proptoΔ_{k_c}λ'^{-1}\csc k_c$. Second, for drives across the critical point between the FM and PM phases, low frequencies can always induce DQPT, regardless of resonance. This behavior stems from the degeneracy of the energy-level at the critical point, which ensures that any drive with a frequency lower than the system's intrinsic transition frequency will inevitably excite the system. However, in the high-frequency regime, such excitation will be strongly suppressed, thereby inhibiting the occurrence of DQPTs. This study provides deeper insight into the nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum spin chains.

cond-mat.otherCross-listedarXiv:2512.24600•Communications in Theoretical Physics•Jan 1, 2026•0 citations
In this paper the authors study a one-dimensional quantum chain subject to a periodic drive that alternates between two coupling profiles modulated in space. They discover the existence of a heating phase where all the excitations accumulate periodically at two specific points of the chain dubbed horizons, through an exact analogy with the ones from black holes. The system heats up by endlessly absorbing the energy of the drive in a non-homogeneous way along the two horizons.
While driven interacting quantum matter is generically subject to heating and scrambling, certain classes of systems evade this paradigm. We study such an exceptional class in periodically driven critical (1+1)-dimensional systems with a spatially modulated but disorder-free time evolution operator. Instead of complete scrambling, the excitations of the system remain well defined. Their propagation is analogous to the evolution along light cones in a curved spacetime obtained by two black holes. The Hawking temperature serves as an order parameter which distinguishes between heating and nonheating phases. Beyond a timescale determined by the inverse Hawking temperature, excitations are absorbed by the black holes resulting in a singular concentration of energy at their horizon. We obtain these results analytically within conformal field theory, capitalizing on a mapping to sine-squared deformed field theories. Furthermore, by means of numerical calculations for an interacting XXZ spin-12 chain, we demonstrate that our findings survive lattice regularization.
Given a genericgenericgeneric two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT), we propose an analytically solvable setup to study the Floquet dynamics of the CFT, i.e., the dynamics of a CFT subject to a periodic driving. A complete phase diagram in the parameter space can be analytically obtained within our setup. We find two phases: the heating phase and the non-heating phase. In the heating phase, the entanglement entropy keeps growing linearly in time, indicating that the system keeps absorbing energy; in the non-heating phase, the entanglement entropy oscillates periodically in time, i.e., the system is not heated. At the phase transition, the entanglement entropy grows logarithmically in time in a universal way. Furthermore, we can obtain the critical exponent by studying the entanglement evolution near the phase transition. Mathematically, different phases (and phase transition) in a Floquet CFT correspond to different types of Mo¨\ddot{\text{o}}o¨bius transformations.
This paper investigates the dynamical phases of Floquet Conformal Field Theories (CFTs) in space-time dimensions greater than two. Building upon our previous work [1] which introduced quaternionic representations for studying Floquet dynamics in higher dimensional CFTs, we now explore more general square pulse drive protocols that go beyond a single SU(1,1) subgroup. We demonstrate that, for multi-step drive protocols, the system exhibits distinct dynamical phases characterized by the nature of the eigenvalues of the quaternionic matrix representing time evolution in a single cycle, leading to different stroboscopic responses. Our analysis establishes a fundamental geometric interpretation where these dynamical phases directly correspond to the presence or absence of Killing horizons in the base space of the CFT and in a higher dimensional AdS space on which a putative dual lives. The heating phase is associated with a non-extremal horizon, the critical phase with an extremal horizon which disappears in the non-heating phase. We develop perturbative approaches to compute the Floquet Hamiltonians in different regimes and show, how tuning drive parameters can lead to horizons, providing a geometric framework for understanding heating phenomena in driven conformal systems.
Floquet systems are governed by periodic, time-dependent Hamiltonians. Prima facie they should absorb energy from the external drives involved in modulating their couplings and heat up to infinite temperature. However, this unhappy state of affairs can be avoided in many ways. Instead, as has become clear from much recent work, Floquet systems can exhibit a variety of nontrivial behavior—some of which is impossible in undriven systems. In this review, we describe the main ideas and themes of this work: novel Floquet drives that exhibit nontrivial topology in single-particle systems, the existence and classification of exotic Floquet drives in interacting systems, and the attendant notion of many-body Floquet phases and arguments for their stability to heating.
This work investigates dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) in a one-dimensional Ising model subjected to a periodically modulated transverse field. In contrast to sudden quenches, we demonstrate that a DQPT can be induced in two distinct ways. First, when the system remains within a given phase--ferromagnetic (FM) or paramagnetic (PM), a resonant periodic drive can trigger a DQPTs when its frequency matches the energy-level transition of the system. This DQPT is intimately connected to the emergence of Floquet topological phases. The timescale for the transition is governed by the perturbation strength λ′λ'λ′, the critical mode kck_ckc​, and its energy gap ΔkcΔ_{k_c}Δkc​​, following the scaling relation τ∝Δkcλ′−1csc⁡kcτ\proptoΔ_{k_c}λ'^{-1}\csc k_cτ∝Δkc​​λ′−1csckc​. Second, for drives across the critical point between the FM and PM phases, low frequencies can always induce DQPT, regardless of resonance. This behavior stems from the degeneracy of the energy-level at the critical point, which ensures that any drive with a frequency lower than the system's intrinsic transition frequency will inevitably excite the system. However, in the high-frequency regime, such excitation will be strongly suppressed, thereby inhibiting the occurrence of DQPTs. This study provides deeper insight into the nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum spin chains.