Lindblad master equation approach to the topological phase transition in the disordered Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model

TL;DR

This paper employs the Lindblad equation to study topological phase transitions and localization phenomena in a disordered SSH chain connected to baths, providing a nonequilibrium approach to identify topological phases.

Contribution

It introduces a Lindblad equation-based method to analyze topological phase transitions and localization in disordered systems under nonequilibrium conditions.

Findings

Recovered localization/delocalization via stationary current scaling

Used even-odd occupancy to distinguish topological phases

Proposed generalization to other disordered topological systems

Abstract

We use the Lindblad equation method to investigate the onset of a mobility edge and the topological phase transition in the disordered SSH chain connected to two external baths in the large bias limit. From the scaling properties of the nonequilibrium stationary current flowing across the system, we recover the localization/delocalization in the disordered chain. To probe the topological phase transition in the presence of disorder, we use the even-odd differential occupancy as a mean to discriminate topologically trivial from topologically nontrival phases in the out-of-equilibirum system. Eventually, we argue how to generalize our method to other systems undergoing a topological phase transition in the presence of disorder.