Experimental observation of energy-band Riemann surface

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Cheng, Dali, Wang, Heming, Zhong, Janet, Lustig, Eran, Roques-Carmes, Charles, Fan, Shanhui
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866917352070709248
author Cheng, Dali
Wang, Heming
Zhong, Janet
Lustig, Eran
Roques-Carmes, Charles
Fan, Shanhui
author_facet Cheng, Dali
Wang, Heming
Zhong, Janet
Lustig, Eran
Roques-Carmes, Charles
Fan, Shanhui
contents Non-Hermiticity naturally arises in many physical systems that exchange energy with their environment. The presence of non-Hermiticity leads to many novel topological physics phenomena and device applications. In the non-Hermitian energy band theory, the foundation of these physics and applications, both energies and wavevectors can take complex values. The energy bands thus become a Riemann surface, and such an energy-band Riemann surface underlies all the important signatures of non-Hermitian topological physics phenomena. Despite a long history and recent theoretical interests, the energy-band Riemann surface has not been experimentally studied. Here we provide a photonic observation of the energy-band Riemann surface of a non-Hermitian system. This is achieved by applying a tunable imaginary gauge transformation on the platform of the photonic synthetic frequency dimension. From the measured topology of the Riemann surface, we reveal the complex-energy winding, the open-boundary-condition spectrum, the generalized Brillouin zone, and the branch points. Our findings demonstrate a unified framework in the studies of diverse effects in non-Hermitian topological physics through an experimental observation of energy-band Riemann surfaces.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_08819
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Experimental observation of energy-band Riemann surface
Cheng, Dali
Wang, Heming
Zhong, Janet
Lustig, Eran
Roques-Carmes, Charles
Fan, Shanhui
Optics
Other Condensed Matter
Non-Hermiticity naturally arises in many physical systems that exchange energy with their environment. The presence of non-Hermiticity leads to many novel topological physics phenomena and device applications. In the non-Hermitian energy band theory, the foundation of these physics and applications, both energies and wavevectors can take complex values. The energy bands thus become a Riemann surface, and such an energy-band Riemann surface underlies all the important signatures of non-Hermitian topological physics phenomena. Despite a long history and recent theoretical interests, the energy-band Riemann surface has not been experimentally studied. Here we provide a photonic observation of the energy-band Riemann surface of a non-Hermitian system. This is achieved by applying a tunable imaginary gauge transformation on the platform of the photonic synthetic frequency dimension. From the measured topology of the Riemann surface, we reveal the complex-energy winding, the open-boundary-condition spectrum, the generalized Brillouin zone, and the branch points. Our findings demonstrate a unified framework in the studies of diverse effects in non-Hermitian topological physics through an experimental observation of energy-band Riemann surfaces.
title Experimental observation of energy-band Riemann surface
topic Optics
Other Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08819