Prethermal nematic order and staircase heating in a driven frustrated Ising magnet with dipolar interactions

Abstract

Many-body systems subject to a high-frequency drive can show intriguing thermalization behavior. Prior to heating to a featureless infinite-temperature state, these systems can spend an exponentially long time in prethermal phases characterized by various kinds of order. Here, we uncover the rich non-equilibrium phase diagram of a driven frustrated two-dimensional Ising magnet with competing short-range ferromagnetic and long-range dipolar interactions. We show that the ordered stripe and nematic phases, which appear in equilibrium as a function of temperature, underpin subsequent prethermal phases in a new multi-step heating process en route towards the ultimate heat death. We discuss implications for experiments on ferromagnetic thin films and other driving induced phenomena in frustrated magnets.

6 pages + 4 figures

References in corpus (6)

• All-optical control of ferromagnetic thin films and nanostructures
• Theory of Electron Nematic Order in LaOFeAs
• Ising and Spin orders in Iron-based Superconductors
• Phase diagram of an Ising model for ultrathin magnetic films
• Classical approaches to prethermal discrete time crystals in one, two, and three dimensions
• Emergence of the stripe-domain phase in patterned Permalloy films

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Out-of-equilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems with long-range interactions
• Non-reciprocal frustration: time crystalline order-by-disorder phenomenon and a spin-glass-like state
• Prethermal time-crystalline spin ice and monopole confinement in a driven magnet
• Space-time symmetry breaking in nonequilibrium frustrated magnetism
• Prethermalization in periodically-driven nonreciprocal many-body spin systems
• Floquet-engineered Emergent Massive Nambu-Goldstone Modes
• Apparent bistability from weak long-range interactions
• Floquet thermalization by power-law induced permutation symmetry breaking