Non-Hermitian Skin Effect from Radiative Coupling in a Reciprocal Chiral Medium

Abstract

We show that long-range radiative coupling in a passive chiral medium produces an unusual non-Hermitian skin effect in a chain of dipoles. The skin-mode profile consists of a long-range light-line branch-cut contribution, a non-exponential factor $1/[n(\ln n{)}^2]$ with $n$ being the site number. Finite-chain calculations show that part of the open-boundary spectrum contracts toward the Bloch spectrum, whereas the number of boundary-localized modes remains extensive. The retarded radiative coupling makes both the real-space profile and the finite-size spectral signatures of boundary localization depart from standard finite-range and pure exponential coupling theory.

arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures