Exponential Bound for the Heating Rate of Periodically Driven Spin Systems

Abstract

For the nuclear spin system of a solid in the presence of an inhomogeneous magnetic field, we have found a rigorous bound for the heating rate of the system under the action of a high-frequency magnetic field, which is applied, for example, to create effective Hamiltonians. We consider the autocorrelation function (ACF) of a spin rotating in a local field whose fluctuations are specified by a Gaussian random process. The correlation function of a random field is taken as the sum of a static inhomogeneous contribution and a time-dependent contribution expressed self-consistently via the spin ACF. The ACF singularities on the imaginary time axis whose coordinates determine the exponents of exponential asymptotics in the high-frequency domain are investigated. The dependences of the coordinates on field inhomogeneity for various approximations have been derived. The wing of the ACF spectrum in the cumulant approximation is shown to serve as a rigorous upper bound for the wing of the ACF spectrum and, consequently, for the heating rate of the system when subjected to variable magnetic fields. We have established that randomly distributed inhomogeneous magnetic fields increase the wings of the ACF spectra and, thus, speed up the system’s heating.