Ultra spectral sensitivity and non-local bi-impurity bound states from quasi-long-range non-hermitian skin modes

Abstract

A fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics is that the energy spectrum of a quantum system shall remain stable against infinitesimally weak and spatially confined perturbations. In this article, we demonstrate that this principle of spectral stability fails in non-Hermitian systems at the thermodynamic limit. Consider, for instance, a non-interacting non-Hermitian system $H_0$ with a couple of point-like impurities, each of which introduces a local short-range potential $V_i$ with $i=1, \ldots, n$ labeling the impurities. If the impurity potentials are sufficiently weak, introducing a single impurity will not alter the spectrum; that is, $H_0$ and $H_0 + V_1$ have nearly identical energy spectra. However, if a second impurity is introduced, $H_0 + V_1 + V_2$, we find that no matter how weak these local potentials are, as long as the distance between them is sufficiently large, significant alterations in the energy spectrum can arise, directly contradicting the traditional expectation of a stable spectrum. Remarkably, this phenomenon is non-local, and the impact of the perturbations increases exponentially with the distance between the two impurities. In other words, although the Hamiltonian is entirely local, its energy spectrum, which is blind to the presence of a single infinitesimally weak impurity, is capable of detecting the presence of two infinitesimally weak impurities separated by a large distance in space. Using Green's function techniques, we uncover the origin of this spectral sensitivity, which arises from the formation of non-local bi-impurity bound states: non-local stationary states with wavepackets propagating back-and-forth between the two impurities. We provide an analytic theory to identify and characterize such spectral instabilities, showing perfect agreement with numerical solutions.