Correlations at PT-symmetric quantum critical point
Abstract
We consider a PT-symmetric Fermi gas with an exceptional point, representing the critical point between PT-symmetric and symmetry broken phases. The low energy spectrum remains linear in momentum and is identical to that of a hermitian Fermi gas. The fermionic Green's function decays in a power law fashion for large distances, as expected from gapless excitations, albeit the exponent is reduced from due to the quantum Zeno effect. In spite of the gapless nature of the excitations, the ground state entanglement entropy saturates to a finite value, independent of the subsystem size due to the non-hermitian correlation length intrinsic to the system. Attractive or repulsive interaction drives the system into the PT-symmetry broken regime or opens up a gap and protects PT-symmetry, respectively. Our results challenge the concept of universality in non-hermitian systems, where quantum criticality can be masked due to non-hermiticity.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2112.08294,
title = {Correlations at PT-symmetric quantum critical point},
author = {Balázs Dóra and Doru Sticlet and Catalin Pascu Moca},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.08294},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
8 pages, 5 figures