Time-dependent driving has become a powerful tool for creating novel nonequilibrium phases such as discrete time crystals and Floquet topological phases, which do not exist in static systems. Breaking continuous time-translation symmetry typically leads to the outcome that driven quantum systems absorb energy and eventually heat up toward a featureless infinite-temperature state, where coherent structure is lost.

Understanding how fast this heating process occurs and whether it can be controlled has become a challenge in nonequilibrium physics. High-frequency periodic driving is known to delay heating, but much less is known about heating dynamics under more general, non-periodic driving protocols.