Detecting bulk and edge exceptional points in non-Hermitian systems through generalized Petermann factors  

作　　者：Yue-Yu Zou Yao Zhou Li-Mei Chen Peng Ye 

机构地区：[1]School of Physics,State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies,and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Magnetoelectric Physics and Devices,Sun Yat-sen University,Guangzhou 510275,China

出　　处：《Frontiers of physics》2024年第2期169-177,共9页物理学前沿（英文版）

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)Grant No.12074438;the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation under Grant No.2020B1515120100;the Open Project of Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Magnetoelectric Physics and Devices under Grant No.2022B1212010008;the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities,Sun Yat-sen University(No.23ptpy05).

摘　　要：Non-orthogonality in non-Hermitian quantum systems gives rise to tremendous exotic quantum phenomena,which can be fundamentally traced back to non-unitarity.In this paper,we introduce an interesting quantity(denoted asη)as a new variant of the Petermann factor to directly and efficiently measure non-unitarity and the associated non-Hermitian physics.By tuning the model parameters of underlying non-Hermitian systems,we find that the discontinuity of bothηand its first-order derivative(denoted as■η)pronouncedly captures rich physics that is fundamentally caused by non-unitarity.More concretely,in the 1D non-Hermitian topological systems,two mutually orthogonal edge states that are respectively localized on two boundaries become non-orthogonal in the vicinity of discontinuity ofηas a function of the model parameter,which is dubbed"edge state transition".Through theoretical analysis,we identify that the appearance of edge state transition indicates the existence of exceptional points(EPs)in topological edge states.Regarding the discontinuity of■η,we investigate a two-level non-Hermitian model and establish a connection between the points of discontinuity of■ηand EPs of bulk states.By studying this connection in more general lattice models,we find that some models have discontinuity of■η,implying the existence of EPs in bulk states.

关 键 词：NON-HERMITIAN Su−Schrieffer−Heeger(SSH)model exceptional point 

分 类 号：O17[理学—数学]