Edge Modes, Degeneracies, and Topological Numbers in Non-Hermitian Systems

Abstract

We analyze chiral topological edge modes in a non-Hermitian variant of the 2D Dirac equation. Such modes appear at interfaces between media with different "masses" and/or signs of the "non-Hermitian charge". The existence of these edge modes is intimately related to exceptional points of the bulk Hamiltonians, i.e., degeneracies in the bulk spectra of the media. We find that the topological edge modes can be divided into three families ("Hermitian-like", "non-Hermitian", and "mixed"), these are characterized by two winding numbers, describing two distinct kinds of half-integer charges carried by the exceptional points. We show that all the above types of topological edge modes can be realized in honeycomb lattices of ring resonators with asymmetric or gain/loss couplings.

6 pages, 3 figures, and Supplementary Materials, to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (7)

• Topological Photonics
• Classification of topological insulators and superconductors in three spatial dimensions
• Making Sense of Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians
• The physics of exceptional points
• Topological Transition in a Non-Hermitian Quantum Walk
• Topological phase in a non-Hermitian PT symmetric system
• $PT$-symmetric graphene under a magnetic field

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