Exponentially slow heating in a periodically driven 3D disordered dipolar spin ensemble in diamond

Periodically driving has recently emerged as a versatile tool to engineer non-equilibrium phases of matter. However, a generic many-body system will inevitably absorb energy from the drive and heat up to a featureless thermal state. Fortunately, when the driving frequency is high, the heating process may be exponentially suppressed, leading to an extremely long-lived state, known as prethermalization. Whether prethermalization exists in a system with long-range interactions and disorder still remains an open question. Here, we report the observation of prethermalization in a 3D disordered dipolar spin ensemble in diamond. In particular, we show that the heating timescales of the many-body system grow exponentially with driving frequencies. Our result demonstrates the possibility of robust Floquet engineering in disordered 3D systems with long-range interactions.