Non-Hermitian Chiral Superfluids with a Complex Interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates non-Hermitian chiral p+ip superfluids with complex interactions, revealing dissipation-induced phase transitions, robustness of topological features, and the absence of skin effects in certain geometries.

Contribution

It develops a mean-field theory for non-Hermitian chiral superfluids, maps their phase diagram, and explores topological robustness and skin effects under dissipation.

Findings

Reentrant superfluid transition due to dissipation.

Dissipation-induced superfluid phase with complex interactions.

Topological edge modes and Chern number are robust to dissipation.

Abstract

Recently, the influence of dissipation on a quantum system has attracted much attention, particularly on how the non-Hermitian terms modify the energy spectrum, band topology, and phase transition point. Motivated by the recent investigation of non-Hermitian $s$-wave superfluidity, we study the non-Hermitian chiral $p+ip$ superfluid (SF) with a complex-valued interaction, originating from inelastic scattering between fermions. We reformulate the non-Hermitian mean-field theory for chiral SFs and derive the gap equation in the path integral approach. By numerically solving the gap equation, we obtain the phase diagram of the non-Hermitian $p+ip$ SF, characterized by the reentrant SF transition and dissipation-induced SF phase, as a result of the evolution of the exceptional lines. The method can be extended to higher partial-wave chiral SFs, such as $d+id$ and $f+if$-wave SFs. We further consider such a chiral $p+ip$ SF on a square lattice, to investigate the influence of dissipation on topology. We find that the non-Hermitian skin effect is absent in the specific cylinder geometry, in which the topology associated with the edge modes and Chern number is robust to dissipation. Besides, we find that the energies at the robust point nodes and line nodes are pure real. We further verify the conditions of zero winding number in (quasi-) one-dimensional systems, and prove an associated ``no-go'' theorem, which is hopefully applied to explore the geometry dependent skin effect.