Multifractality without fine-tuning in a Floquet quasiperiodic chain

• Published in: SciPost physics Vol. 4; no. 5; p. 025
• Main Authors: Roy, Sthitadhi, Khaymovich, Ivan, Das, Arnab, Moessner, Roderich
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: SciPost 01.05.2018
• ISSN: 2542-4653; 2542-4653
• DOI: 10.21468/SciPostPhys.4.5.025

Periodically driven, or Floquet, disordered quantum systems have generated many unexpected discoveries of late, such as the anomalous Floquet Anderson insulator and the discrete time crystal. Here, we report the emergence of an entire band of multifractal wavefunctions in a periodically driven chain of non-interacting particles subject to spatially quasiperiodic disorder. Remarkably, this multifractality is robust in that it does not require any fine-tuning of the model parameters, which sets it apart from the known multifractality of critical wavefunctions. The multifractality arises as the periodic drive hybridises the localised and delocalised sectors of the undriven spectrum. We account for this phenomenon in a simple random matrix based theory. Finally, we discuss dynamical signatures of the multifractal states, which should betray their presence in cold atom experiments. Such a simple yet robust realisation of multifractality could advance this so far elusive phenomenon towards applications, such as the proposed disorder-induced enhancement of a superfluid transition.