Beyond symmetry protection: Robust feedback-enforced edge states in non-Hermitian stacked quantum spin Hall systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yang, Mengjie, Lee, Ching Hua
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Yang, Mengjie
Lee, Ching Hua
author_facet Yang, Mengjie
Lee, Ching Hua
contents Conventional wisdom holds that, in the simplest time-reversal-symmetric setting, strongly coupling two QSH layers yields a trivial $\mathbb Z_2$ phase and no protected topological edge states. We demonstrate that, in a regime with intermediate inter-layer coupling (neither in the strong or weak coupling regimes) and competitive non-Hermitian directed amplification, bulk modes are rendered with negligible gain while arbitrary bulk excitations inevitably accumulate into robust helical edge transport modes -- without relying on any symmetry protection. Our feedback-enforced mechanism persists over broad parameter ranges and remains robust even on fractal or irregular boundaries. These findings challenge the traditional view of stacked QSH insulators as inevitably trivial, and open up new avenues for designing helical topological devices that exploit feedback-enforced non-Hermitian engineering, instead of symmetry-enforced robustness.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_17295
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Beyond symmetry protection: Robust feedback-enforced edge states in non-Hermitian stacked quantum spin Hall systems
Yang, Mengjie
Lee, Ching Hua
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Other Condensed Matter
Mathematical Physics
Computational Physics
Quantum Physics
Conventional wisdom holds that, in the simplest time-reversal-symmetric setting, strongly coupling two QSH layers yields a trivial $\mathbb Z_2$ phase and no protected topological edge states. We demonstrate that, in a regime with intermediate inter-layer coupling (neither in the strong or weak coupling regimes) and competitive non-Hermitian directed amplification, bulk modes are rendered with negligible gain while arbitrary bulk excitations inevitably accumulate into robust helical edge transport modes -- without relying on any symmetry protection. Our feedback-enforced mechanism persists over broad parameter ranges and remains robust even on fractal or irregular boundaries. These findings challenge the traditional view of stacked QSH insulators as inevitably trivial, and open up new avenues for designing helical topological devices that exploit feedback-enforced non-Hermitian engineering, instead of symmetry-enforced robustness.
title Beyond symmetry protection: Robust feedback-enforced edge states in non-Hermitian stacked quantum spin Hall systems
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Other Condensed Matter
Mathematical Physics
Computational Physics
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17295