From Hermitian critical to non-Hermitian point-gapped phases

TL;DR

This paper establishes a connection between topological invariants in Hermitian critical points and non-Hermitian point-gapped phases, revealing shared features and potential for cross-understanding in open and critical systems.

Contribution

It demonstrates the equivalence of topological invariants in critical Hermitian systems and non-Hermitian point-gap phases under sublattice symmetry, unifying two areas of topological physics.

Findings

Shared topological features in critical and non-Hermitian systems

Equivalence of topological invariants under sublattice symmetry

Potential for cross-application of insights between systems

Abstract

Recent years have seen a growing interest in topological phases beyond the standard paradigm of gapped, isolated systems. One recent direction is to explore topological features in non-hermitian systems that are commonly used as effective descriptions of open systems. Another direction explores the fate of topology at critical points, where the bulk gap collapses. One interesting observation is that both systems, though very different, share certain topological features. For instance, both systems can host half-integer quantized winding numbers and have very similar entanglement spectra. Here, we make this similarity explicit by showing the equivalence of topological invariants in critical systems with non-hermitian point-gap phases, in the presence of sublattice symmetry. This correspondence may carry over to other features beyond topological invariants, and may even be helpful to deepen our understanding of non-hermitian systems using our knowledge of critical systems, and vice versa.