Mott, Floquet, and the response of periodically driven Anderson insulators

Journal Article · 06 December 2018 · Physical Review. B

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.98.214202 · OSTI ID:1612443

Liu, Dillon T. ^[1]; Chalker, J. T. ^[2]; Khemani, Vedika ^[3]; Sondhi, S. L. ^[4]

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1. New York Univ. (NYU), NY (United States); Oxford Univ. (United Kingdom); DOE/OSTI
2. Oxford Univ. (United Kingdom)
3. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
4. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)

We consider periodically driven Anderson insulators. The short-time behavior for weak, monochromatic, uniform electric fields is given by linear response theory and was famously derived by Mott. We go beyond this to consider both long times—which is the physics of Floquet late time states—and strong electric fields. This results in a “phase diagram” in the frequency-field strength plane, in which we identify four distinct regimes. Furthermore, these are a linear response regime dominated by preexisting Mott resonances, which exists provided Floquet saturation is not reached within a period; a nonlinear perturbative regime, which exhibits multiphoton-absorption in response to the field; a near-adiabatic regime, which exhibits a primarily reactive response spread over the entire sample and is insensitive to preexisting resonances; and finally an enhanced dissipative regime.

• Research Organization: Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0016244
• OSTI ID: 1612443
• Journal Information: Physical Review. B, Journal Name: Physical Review. B Journal Issue: 21 Vol. 98; ISSN 2469-9950
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English