Periodic driving reshapes mobility edges in a quasiperiodic model

A mobility edge marks a boundary between different kinds of quantum states. In this study, researchers examine how such boundaries behave when the generalized Aubry–André model—also called the Ganeshan–Pixley–Das Sarma (GPD) model—is subjected to a periodic electric field. The model is already known to host mobility edges; the question is how driving changes its spectrum and transport.

The authors analyze the driven system’s Floquet spectrum, which describes its behavior under periodic time variation. According to the abstract, they find two distinct Floquet mobility edges. In the model’s bounded regime, a delocalized–localized (DL) edge separates delocalized states from localized states. In its unbounded regime, a multifractal–localized (ML) edge separates multifractal states from localized ones. The abstract names these categories but does not explain their detailed spatial structure.

For high-frequency driving, the researchers map the effective description to the static GPD model with hopping renormalized by a Bessel function. From this mapping, they obtain formulas for the driven mobility edges. The abstract also reports drive-induced localization at particular parameter values, where effective tunneling is coherently suppressed. The authors use numerical diagnostics including fractal dimension and inverse participation ratio to characterize states, and report that the electric field’s amplitude and frequency can control the mobility edges.

The abstract also reports different transport classifications in the two regimes: superdiffusive to almost ballistic transport in the bounded regime associated with the DL edge, and subdiffusive transport in the unbounded regime associated with the ML edge. These are the authors’ reported findings; the abstract does not provide enough methodological detail to assess how the classifications were established.

Frequency is an important qualification. The high-frequency description does not capture all the behavior examined: the authors report significant and counterintuitive deviations in spectral properties and transport at low frequencies. The abstract does not provide enough detail to assess the scale or causes of those deviations.

This account is based on the abstract because full paper extraction was unavailable. It therefore cannot assess the complete methods, calculations, or supporting evidence. The work is theoretical and does not report an experimental demonstration. It is an arXiv preprint; this summary does not establish whether it has been peer reviewed or independently validated. The authors’ central proposal is that periodic driving offers a way to tune mobility edges and transport in this model, with results depending on the driving-frequency regime.