In this paper, we present a unifying analytical framework for identifying conditions for transport effects such as reflectionless and transparent transport, lasing, and coherent perfect absorption in non-Hermitian nonreciprocal systems using a generalized transfer matrix method. This provides a universal approach to studying the transport of tight-binding platforms, including higher-dimensional models and those with an internal degree of freedom going beyond the previously studied case of one-dimensional chains with nearest-neighbor couplings. For a specific class of tight-binding models, the relevant transport conditions and their signatures of non-Hermitian, nonreciprocal, and topological behavior are analytically tractable from a general perspective. We investigate this class and illustrate our formalism in a paradigmatic ladder model where the system’s parameters can be tuned to adjust the transport effect and topological phases.
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Compatibility of transport effects in non-Hermitian nonreciprocal systems
Based on a general transport theory for nonreciprocal non-Hermitian systems and a topological model that encompasses a wide range of previously studied examples, we (i) provide conditions for effects such as reflectionless and transparent transport, lasing, and coherent perfect absorption, (ii) identify which effects are compatible and linked with each other, and (iii) determine by which levers they can be tuned independently. For instance, the directed amplification inherent in the non-Hermitian skin effect does not enter the spectral conditions for reflectionless transport, lasing, or coherent perfect absorption, but allows to adjust the transparency of the system. In addition, in the topological model the conditions for reflectionless transport depend on the topological phase, but those for coherent perfect absorption do not. This then allows us to establish a number of distinct transport signatures of non-Hermitian, nonreciprocal, and topological behavior, in particular (1) reflectionless transport in a direction that depends on the topological phase, (2) invisibility coinciding with the skin-effect phase transition of topological edge states, and (3) coherent perfect absorption in a system that is transparent when probed from one side.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2012172
- PAR ID:
- 10635643
- Publisher / Repository:
- APS
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review A
- Volume:
- 104
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2469-9926
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 023515
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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