Topological unification of time-reversal and particle-hole symmetries in non-Hermitian physics

Kohei Kawabata (), Sho Higashikawa, Zongping Gong, Yuto Ashida and Masahito Ueda
Additional contact information
Kohei Kawabata: University of Tokyo
Sho Higashikawa: University of Tokyo
Zongping Gong: University of Tokyo
Yuto Ashida: University of Tokyo
Masahito Ueda: University of Tokyo

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Topological phases are enriched in non-equilibrium open systems effectively described by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. While several properties unique to non-Hermitian topological systems were uncovered, the fundamental role of symmetry in non-Hermitian physics has yet to be fully understood, and it has remained unclear how symmetry protects non-Hermitian topological phases. Here we show that two fundamental anti-unitary symmetries, time-reversal and particle-hole symmetries, are topologically equivalent in the complex energy plane and hence unified in non-Hermitian physics. A striking consequence of this symmetry unification is the emergence of unique non-equilibrium topological phases that have no counterparts in Hermitian systems. We illustrate this by presenting a non-Hermitian counterpart of the Majorana chain in an insulator with time-reversal symmetry and that of the quantum spin Hall insulator in a superconductor with particle-hole symmetry. Our work establishes a fundamental symmetry principle in non-Hermitian physics and paves the way towards a unified framework for non-equilibrium topological phases.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-08254-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-08254-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-08254-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().