Topological Edge States and Collective Radiation in a One-Dimensional Atomic Chain

Abstract

We investigate the topological and collective radiative properties of a one-dimensional diatomic chain of identical quantum emitters with alternating spacing, coupled to the electromagnetic vacuum. The system realizes an extended, non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger-type model with vacuum-mediated long-range interactions and collective dissipation. We focus on the single-excitation manifold, where the dynamics are described by an effective Hamiltonian. For an infinite chain, the complex band structure reveals subradiant modes associated with wave vectors outside the light line, as well as parameter regimes where real-part band crossings occur. The bulk topology is characterized by a complex Berry phase, which remains quantized in the presence of inversion symmetry and a spectral gap. For finite chains, using exact diagonalization, we identify superradiant, subradiant, and edge states with distinct decay rates and spatial profiles. Edge states emerge in the topologically nontrivial regime when a bulk gap in the real part of the energy spectrum is present, while subradiant states exhibit strongly suppressed decay with system-size dependence. Finally, we analyze the far-field radiation patterns associated with different classes of eigenstates and show that the emission characteristics reflect the decay properties, spatial localization, and the parity of the unit-cell amplitudes.