Periodically driven interacting electrons in one dimension: Many-body Floquet approach

We propose a method to study the time evolution of correlated electrons driven by a harmonic perturbation. Combining Floquet formalism to include the time-dependent field and cluster perturbation theory to solve the many-body problem in the presence of short-range correlations, we treat the electron double dressing, by photons and by e-e interactions, on the same footing. We apply the method to an extended Hubbard chain at half occupation, and we show that in the regime of small field frequency and for given values of field strength, the zero-mode Floquet band is no longer gapped and the system recovers a metallic state. Our results are indicative of an omnipresent mechanism for insulator-to-metal transitions in one-dimensional systems.