Stroboscopic versus non-stroboscopic dynamics in the Floquet realization of the Harper-Hofstadter Hamiltonian

Abstract

We study the stroboscopic and non-stroboscopic dynamics in the Floquet realization of the Harper-Hofstadter Hamiltonian. We show that the former produces the evolution expected in the high-frequency limit only for observables which commute with the operator to which the driving protocol couples. On the contrary, non-stroboscopic dynamics is capable of capturing the evolution governed by the Floquet Hamiltonian of any observable associated with the effective high-frequency model. We provide exact numerical simulations for the dynamics of the density operator following a quantum cyclotron orbit on a $2\times 2$ plaquette, as well as the chiral current operator flowing along the legs of a $2\times 20$ ladder. The exact evolution is compared with its stroboscopic and non-stroboscopic counterparts, including finite-frequency corrections.