Contributor info: Dr Viktor Könye

Helene Spring, Viktor Könye, Anton R. Akhmerov, Ion Cosma Fulga

SciPost Phys. 17, 153 (2024) · published 5 December 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

The non-Hermitian skin effect is a phenomenon in which an extensive number of states accumulates at the boundaries of a system. It has been associated to nontrivial topology, with nonzero bulk invariants predicting its appearance and its position in real space. Here, we demonstrate that the non-Hermitian skin effect has weaker bulk-edge correspondence than topological insulators: when translation symmetry is broken by a single non-Hermitian impurity, skin modes are depleted at the boundary and accumulate at the impurity site, without changing any bulk invariant. Similarly, a single non-Hermitian impurity may deplete the states from a region of Hermitian bulk.

Helene Spring, Viktor Könye, Fabian A. Gerritsma, Ion Cosma Fulga, Anton R. Akhmerov

SciPost Phys. 16, 120 (2024) · published 3 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Disorder can localize the eigenstates of one-dimensional non-Hermitian systems, leading to an Anderson transition with a critical exponent of 1. We show that, due to the lack of energy conservation, the dynamics of individual, real-space wave packets follows a different behavior. Both transitions between localization and unidirectional amplification, as well as transitions between distinct propagating phases become possible. The critical exponent of the transition is close to 1/2 in propagating-propagating and (de)localization transitions.