The Floquet Adiabatic Theorem revisited

The existance of the adiabatic theorem for Floquet systems has been the subject of an active debate with different articles reaching opposite conclusions over the years. In this talk we clarify the situation by deriving a systematic expansion in the time-derivatives of a slow parameter for the occupation probabilities of the Floque states. Our analysis shows that the in a certain limit the transition between Floquet eigenstates are suppressed and it is possible to define an adiabatic theorem for Floquet systems. Crucially we observe however that the conditions for adiabaticity in ordinary and Floquet systems are different and that this difference can become important when the amplitude of the periodic driving is large. We illustrate our results with specific examples of a periodically driven harmonic oscillator and cold atoms in optical lattices which are relevant in current experiments.