No Arabic abstract
Topology plays a central role in nearly all disciplines of physics, yet its applications have so far been restricted to closed, lossless systems in thermodynamic equilibrium. Given that many physical systems are open and may include gain and loss mechanisms, there is an eminent need to reexamine topology within the context of non-Hermitian theories that describe open, lossy systems. The recent generalization of the Chern number to non-Hermitian Hamiltonians initiated this reexamination; however, there is so far no established connection between a non-Hermitian topological invariant and the quantization of an observable. In this work, we show that no such relationship exists between the Chern number of non-Hermitian bands and the quantization of the Hall conductivity. Using field theoretical techniques, we calculate the longitudinal and Hall conductivities of a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian with a finite Chern number to explicitly demonstrate the physics of a non-quantized Hall conductivity despite an invariable Chern number. These results demonstrate that the Chern number does not provide a physically meaningful classification of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians.
We propose a two-dimensional non-Hermitian Chern insulator with inversion symmetry, which is anisotropic and has staggered gain and loss in both x and y directions. In this system, conventional bulk-boundary correspondence holds. The Chern number is a topological invariant that accurately predicts the topological phase transition and the existence of helical edge states in the topologically nontrivial gapped phase. In the gapless phase, the band touching points are isolated and protected by the symmetry. The degenerate points alter the system topology, and the exceptional points can destroy the existence of helical edge states. Topologically protected helical edge states exist in the gapless phase for the system under open boundary condition in one direction, which are predicted by the winding number associated with the vector field of average values of Pauli matrices. The winding number also identifies the detaching points between the edge states and the bulk states in the energy bands. The non-Hermiticity also supports a topological phase with zero Chern number, where a pair of in-gap helical edge states exists. Our findings provide insights into the symmetry protected non-Hermitian topological insulators.
We investigate the Hall conductance of a two-dimensional Chern insulator coupled to an environment causing gain and loss. Introducing a biorthogonal linear response theory, we show that sufficiently strong gain and loss lead to a characteristic non-analytical contribution to the Hall conductance. Near its onset, this contribution exhibits a universal power-law with a power 3/2 as a function of Dirac mass, chemical potential and gain strength. Our results pave the way for the study of non-Hermitian topology in electronic transport experiments.
The development of non-Hermitian topological band theory has led to observations of novel topological phenomena in effectively classical, driven and dissipative systems. However, for open quantum many-body systems, the absence of a ground state presents a challenge to define robust signatures of non-Hermitian topology. We show that such a signature is provided by crossings in the time evolution of the entanglement spectrum. These crossings occur in quenches from the trivial to the topological phase of a driven-dissipative Kitaev chain that is described by a Markovian quantum master equation in Lindblad form. At the topological transition, which can be crossed either by changing parameters of the Hamiltonian of the system or by increasing the strength of dissipation, the time scale at which the first entanglement spectrum crossing occurs diverges with a dynamical critical exponent of $epsilon = 1/2$. We corroborate these numerical findings with an exact analytical solution of the quench dynamics for a spectrally flat postquench Liouvillian. This exact solution suggests an interpretation of the topological quench dynamics as a fermion parity pump. Our work thus reveals signatures of non-Hermitian topology which are unique to quantum many-body systems and cannot be emulated in classical simulators of non-Hermitian wave physics.
Magnetic systems have been extensively studied both from a fundamental physics perspective and as building blocks for a variety of applications. Their topological properties, in particular those of excitations, remain relatively unexplored due to their inherently dissipative nature. The recent introduction of non-Hermitian topological classifications opens up new opportunities for engineering topological phases in dissipative systems. Here, we propose a magnonic realization of a non-Hermitian topological system. A crucial ingredient of our proposal is the injection of spin current into the magnetic system, which alters and can even change the sign of terms describing dissipation. We show that the magnetic dynamics of an array of spin-torque oscillators can be mapped onto a non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model exhibiting topologically protected edge states. Using exact diagonalization of the linearized dynamics and numerical solutions of the non-linear equations of motion, we find that a topological magnonic phase can be accessed by tuning the spin current injected into the array. In the topologically nontrivial regime, a single spin-torque oscillator on the edge of the array is driven into auto-oscillation and emits a microwave signal, while the bulk oscillators remain inactive. Our findings have practical utility for memory devices and spintronics neural networks relying on spin-torque oscillators as constituent units.
Disorder and non-Hermiticity dramatically impact the topological and localization properties of a quantum system, giving rise to intriguing quantum states of matter. The rich interplay of disorder, non-Hermiticity, and topology is epitomized by the recently proposed non-Hermitian topological Anderson insulator that hosts a plethora of exotic phenomena. Here we experimentally simulate the non-Hermitian topological Anderson insulator using disordered photonic quantum walks, and characterize its localization and topological properties. In particular, we focus on the competition between Anderson localization induced by random disorder, and the non-Hermitian skin effect under which all eigenstates are squeezed toward the boundary. The two distinct localization mechanisms prompt a non-monotonous change in profile of the Lyapunov exponent, which we experimentally reveal through dynamic observables. We then probe the disorder-induced topological phase transitions, and demonstrate their biorthogonal criticality. Our experiment further advances the frontier of synthetic topology in open systems.