Emergent conservation in the Floquet dynamics of integrable non-Hermitian models

Abstract

We study the dynamics of a class of integrable non-Hermitian free-fermionic models driven periodically using a continuous drive protocol characterized by an amplitude $g_1$ and frequency $\omega_D$. We derive an analytic, albeit perturbative, Floquet Hamiltonian for describing such systems using Floquet perturbation theory with $g_1^{-1}$ being the perturbation parameter. Our analysis indicates the existence of special drive frequencies at which an approximately conserved quantity emerges. The presence of such an almost conserved quantity is reflected in the dynamics of the fidelity, the correlation functions and the half-chain entanglement entropy of the driven system. In addition, it also controls the nature of the steady state of the system. We show that one-dimensional (1D) transverse field Ising model, with an imaginary component of the transverse field, serves as an experimentally relevant example of this phenomenon. In this case, the transverse magnetization is approximately conserved; this conservation leads to complete suppression of oscillatory features in the transient dynamics of fidelity, magnetization, and entanglement of the driven chain at special drive frequencies. We discuss the nature of the steady state of the Ising chain near and away from these special frequencies, demonstrate the protocol independence of this phenomenon by showing its existence for discrete drive protocols, and suggest experiments which can test our theory.