Inertial Inversion Screening in Periodically Driven Metallic Lattices: A Floquet Engineering Approach

We present a theoretical investigation of Inertial Inversion Screening (IIS), a non-equilibrium electronic regime induced by strong periodic driving in crystalline lattices. Using the Floquet formalism,we demonstrate that THz-frequency driving of transition metal lattices dynamically renormalizesthe effective hopping amplitude, leading to an inversion of the electronic effective mass (m∗ < 0).This anomalous regime exhibits a qualitatively distinct screening response characterized by chargeaccumulation at potential maxima. Our numerical framework validates this principle through nonperturbative Floquet-Hamiltonian diagonalization and establishes universal scaling behavior acrossPd, Ti, Ni, and Li lattices governed by the dimensionless parameter ξ = eE0a/ℏω. We demonstraterobustness of the IIS phase against 20% random site disorder and anharmonic lattice distortions.Phenomenological analysis within a classical framework indicates substantial modification of approach conditions for charged particles in the inverted-mass regime. We propose an experimentallyaccessible analog realization in driven 87Rb optical lattices, predicting a critical mirror oscillationamplitude of 26.3 ± 2 nm for observing mass inversion signatures.