Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 227, 323–333 (2018)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2018-00087-1

Regular Article

Floquet–Gibbs state in open quantum systems

¹ The Institute for Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
² Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

^a e-mail: shirai@exa.phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Received: 2 October 2017
Received in final form: 28 December 2017
Published online: 28 September 2018

Abstract

We study long-time asymptotic states of periodically driven quantum systems coupled to a thermal bath. In order to describe a class of such a system, we introduce the Floquet–Gibbs state, i.e. the state whose density matrix is diagonalized in the basis of the Floquet state of the system Hamiltonian, and its diagonal element obeys the Boltzmann distribution over its Floquet quasienergy. We obtain sufficient conditions for the realization of the Floquet–Gibbs state in a system with infinitesimal system-bath coupling [T. Shirai et al., Phys. Rev. E 91, 030101 (2015)]. These conditions severely restrict a class of suitable physical models attaining the Floquet–Gibbs state. We also show that some of the conditions can be lifted by imposing conditions on timescales of the thermal bath with the aid of the truncated Floquet Hamiltonian in the Floquet–Magnus expansion [T. Shirai et al., New J. Phys. 18, 053008 (2016)]. In this paper, we give an overview of this theory and reconsider it by looking at the dynamics from a rotating frame.