2020/11/15 by Li Wang, Qing Liu, Yunbo Zhang
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Acoustics #Algebraic structures and combinatorial models #Condensed matter physics #Hermitian matrix #Lattice (music) #Lossy compression #Mathematics #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Mechanics and Non-Hermitian Physics #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Quantum mechanics #Statistical physics #Statistics #Theoretical physics #cond-mat.quant-gas #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1674-1056/abd765
published as Chin. Phys. B Vol. 30, No. 2 (2021) 020506 · 7 pages, 8 figures
arxiv created 2020/11/15 · openalex publication_date 2020/12/30 · arxiv updated 2021/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We investigate quantum dynamics of a quantum walker on a finite bipartite non-Hermitian lattice, in which the particle can leak out with certain rate whenever it visits one of the two sublattices. Quantum walker initially located on one of the non-leaky sites will finally totally disappear after a length of evolution time and the distribution of decay probability on each unit cell is obtained. In one regime, the resultant distribution shows an expected decreasing behavior as the distance from the initial site increases. However, in the other regime, we find that the resultant distribution of local decay probability is very counterintuitive, in which a relatively high population of decay probability appears on the edge unit cell which is the farthest from the starting point of the quantum walker. We then analyze the energy spectrum of the non-Hermitian lattice with pure loss, and find that the intriguing behavior of the resultant decay probability distribution is intimately related to the existence and specific property of the edge states, which are topologically protected and can be well predicted by the non-Bloch winding number. The exotic dynamics may be observed experimentally with arrays of coupled resonator optical waveguides.