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We study the properties of a conformal field theory (CFT) driven periodically with a continuous protocol characterized by a frequency ωD. Such a drive, in contrast to its discrete counterparts (such as square pulses or periodic kicks), does not admit exact analytical solution for the evolution operator U. In this work, we develop a Floquet perturbation theory which provides an analytic, albeit perturbative, result for U that matches exact numerics in the large drive amplitude limit. We find that the drive yields the well-known heating (hyperbolic) and non-heating (elliptic) phases separated by transition lines (parabolic phase boundary). Using this and starting from a primary state of the CFT, we compute the return probability (Pn), equal (Cn) and unequal (Gn) time two-point primary correlators, energy density(En), and the mth Renyi entropy ($$ {S}_n^m $$ S n m ) after n drive cycles. Our results show that below a crossover stroboscopic time scale nc, Pn, En and Gn exhibits universal power law behavior as the transition is approached either from the heating or the non-heating phase; this crossover scale diverges at the transition. We also study the emergent spatial structure of Cn, Gn and En for the continuous protocol and find emergence of spatial divergences of Cn and Gn in both the heating and non-heating phases. We express our results for $$ {S}_n^m $$ S n m and Cn in terms of conformal blocks and provide analytic expressions for these quantities in several limiting cases. Finally we relate our results to those obtained from exact numerics of a driven lattice model.

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We study ramp and periodic dynamics of ultracold bosons in an one-dimensional (1D) optical lattice which supports quantum critical points separating a uniform and a Z3 or Z4 symmetry broken density-wave ground state. Our protocol involves both linear and periodic drives which takes the system from the uniform state to the quantum critical point (for linear drive protocol) or to the ordered state and back (for periodic drive protocols) via controlled variation of a parameter of the system Hamiltonian. We provide exact numerical computation, for finite-size boson chains with L ≤ 24 using exact-diagonalization (ED), of the excitation density D, the wavefunction overlap F , and the excess energy Q at the end of the drive protocol. For the linear ramp protocol, we identify the range of ramp speeds for which D and Q shows Kibble-Zurek scaling. We find, based on numerical analysis with L ≤ 24, that such scaling is consistent with that expected from critical exponents of the q-state Potts universality class with q = 3, 4. For periodic protocol, we show that the model display near-perfect dynamical freezing at specific frequencies; at these frequencies D, Q → 0 and |F | → 1. We provide a semi-analytic explanation of such freezing behavior and relate this phenomenon to a many-body version of Stuckelberg interference. We suggest experiments which can test our theory.

We study the superconducting current of a Josephson junction (JJ) coupled to an external nanomagnet driven by a time dependent magnetic field both without and in the presence of an external AC drive. We provide an analytic, albeit perturbative, solution for the Landau-Lifshitz (LL) equations governing the coupled JJ-nanomagnet system in the presence of a magnetic field with arbitrary time-dependence oriented along the easy axis of the nanomagnet's magnetization and in the limit of weak dimensionless coupling 0 between the JJ and the nanomagnet. We show the existence of Shapiro-like steps in the I-V characteristics of the JJ subjected to a voltage bias for a constant or periodically varying magnetic field and explore the effect of rotation of the magnetic field and the presence of an external AC drive on these steps. We support our analytic results with exact numerical solution of the LL equations. We also extend our results to dissipative nanomagnets by providing a perturbative solution to the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equations for weak dissipation. We study the fate of magnetization-induced Shapiro steps in the presence of dissipation both from our analytical results and via numerical solution of the coupled LLG equations. We discuss experiments which can test our theory.