Description
Prethermalization phenomena in driven systems are generally understood via a local Floquet Hamiltonian obtained from a high frequency expansion. It turns out that this picture is insufficient for systems with emergent fractionalized excitations. A first example is a driven Kitaev spin liquid which realizes a quasistationary state with vastly different Temperatures of the matter and flux sectors – a phenomenon dubbed fractionalized prethermalization [1]. In our work we argue that similar heating dynamics also occur in driven 1D tJ-models. In the weak doping limit of this model, the electron fractionalizes into quasiparticles carrying charge and spin. We show that the nonequilibrium heating dynamics of this model feature a quasistationary state characterized by a low spin and high charge temperature. We argue that the lifetime of this quasistationary state is determined by two competing processes depending on the specific drive chosen: A Fermi Golden Rule that describes the lifetime of the quasiparticles and the exponential lifetime of a Floquet prethermal plateau. Using a time dependent variant of the Schrieffer-Wolff transformation we systematically analyze the different classes of drives emerging from the respective Hubbard model. Lastly, we discuss potential ways towards an experimental realization in cold atom experiments.
References
[1] PRL 130, 226701, 2023
