We consider a strongly driven two-level (spin) system, with a periodic external field that induces a sequence of avoided level crossings. The spin system interacts with a bosonic reservoir which leads to decoherence. A Markovian dynamical equation is introduced without relying on the rotating wave approximation in the system-external field interaction. We show that the time evolution of the two-level system is directed toward an incoherent sum of periodic Floquet states regardless of the initial state and even the type of the coupling to the environment. Analyzing the time scale of approaching these time-dependent pointer states, information can be deduced concerning the nature and strength of the system-environment coupling. The inversion as a function of the external field is usually multivalued, and the form of these hysteresis curves is qualitatively different for low and high temperatures. For moderate temperatures we found that the series of Landau-Zener-St\"uckelberg-type transitions still can be used for state preparation, regardless of the decoherence rate. Possible applications include quantum information processing and molecular nanomagnets.
Driven many-body quantum systems where some parameter in the Hamiltonian is varied quasiperiodically in time may exhibit nonequilibrium steady states that are qualitatively different from their periodically driven counterparts. Here we consider a prototypical integrable spin system, the spin-
1/2 transverse field Ising model in one dimension, in a pulsed magnetic field. The time dependence of the field is taken to be quasiperiodic by choosing the pulses to be of two types that alternate according to a Fibonacci sequence. We show that a steady state emerges after an exponentially long time when local properties (or equivalently, reduced density matrices of subsystems with size much smaller than the full system) are considered. We use the temporal evolution of certain coarse-grained quantities in momentum space to understand this nonequilibrium steady state in more detail and show that unlike the previously known cases, this steady state is neither described by a periodic generalized Gibbs ensemble nor by an infinite temperature ensemble. Finally, we study a toy problem with a single two-level system driven by a Fibonacci sequence; this problem shows how sensitive the nature of the final steady state is to the different parameters.
We study theoretically the nonadiabatic geometric phase of a doubly driven two-level system with an additional relative phase between the two driving modes introduced in. It is shown that the time evolution of the system strongly depends on this relative phase. The condition for the system returning to its initial state after a single period is given by the means of the Landau–Zener–Stückelberg–Majorana destructive interference. The nonadiabatic geometric phase accompanying a cyclic evolution is shown to be related to the Stokes phase as well as this relative phase. By controlling the relative phase, the geometric phase can characterize two distinct phases in the adiabatic limit.