Exceptional points in a non-Hermitian topological pump

We investigate the effects of non-Hermiticity on topological pumping and uncover a connection between a topological edge invariant based on topological pumping and the winding numbers of exceptional points. In Hermitian lattices, it is known that the topologically nontrivial regime of the topologica...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hu, Wenchao, Wang, Hailong, Shum, Perry Ping, Chong, Yi Dong
Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/80713
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/46593
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:We investigate the effects of non-Hermiticity on topological pumping and uncover a connection between a topological edge invariant based on topological pumping and the winding numbers of exceptional points. In Hermitian lattices, it is known that the topologically nontrivial regime of the topological pump only arises in the infinite-system limit. In finite non-Hermitian lattices, however, topologically nontrivial behavior can also appear, and we show that this can be understood as the effect of encircling a pair of exceptional points during a pumping cycle. This phenomenon is observed experimentally in a non-Hermitian microwave network containing variable-gain amplifiers.