Topological boundaries in non-Hermitian p-wave Kitaev chains with Rashba spin-orbit coupling

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shahab, Shahroze, Chakrabarty, Aditi, Datta, Sanjoy
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866917136936468480
author Shahab, Shahroze
Chakrabarty, Aditi
Datta, Sanjoy
author_facet Shahab, Shahroze
Chakrabarty, Aditi
Datta, Sanjoy
contents In this work, we investigate the combined effects of Rashba spin-orbit coupling (RSOC) and non-Hermiticity on topological phase transitions in spinful p-wave Kitaev chains. While previous studies have separately examined non-Hermitian (NH) extensions of Kitaev chains and the effects of RSOC in Hermitian systems, the interplay between these two mechanisms remains largely unexplored. We analyze this interplay by considering two distinct types of complex on-site potentials: (i) a uniform gain/loss term and (ii) a complex quasiperiodic potential. We demonstrate that the impact of RSOC is highly model-dependent. In particular, RSOC does not affect the topological phase boundary in the Hermitian limit of the uniform gain/loss model (provided the spin-flip hopping is weaker than the pairing strength), but significantly alters the topological landscape in the NH regime. In contrast, for the quasiperiodic model, RSOC modifies the phase boundaries in both the Hermitian and non-Hermitian cases. Notably, we find that the combined interplay of non-Hermiticity and RSOC drives topological transitions at significantly lower potential strengths compared to the Hermitian limit. We derive analytical expressions for the topological phase transitions in both cases and validate our predictions through numerical calculations of energy spectra and real-space winding numbers. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of how non-Hermiticity and RSOC cooperatively reshape topological phase diagrams in one-dimensional superconducting systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_09676
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Topological boundaries in non-Hermitian p-wave Kitaev chains with Rashba spin-orbit coupling
Shahab, Shahroze
Chakrabarty, Aditi
Datta, Sanjoy
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Superconductivity
In this work, we investigate the combined effects of Rashba spin-orbit coupling (RSOC) and non-Hermiticity on topological phase transitions in spinful p-wave Kitaev chains. While previous studies have separately examined non-Hermitian (NH) extensions of Kitaev chains and the effects of RSOC in Hermitian systems, the interplay between these two mechanisms remains largely unexplored. We analyze this interplay by considering two distinct types of complex on-site potentials: (i) a uniform gain/loss term and (ii) a complex quasiperiodic potential. We demonstrate that the impact of RSOC is highly model-dependent. In particular, RSOC does not affect the topological phase boundary in the Hermitian limit of the uniform gain/loss model (provided the spin-flip hopping is weaker than the pairing strength), but significantly alters the topological landscape in the NH regime. In contrast, for the quasiperiodic model, RSOC modifies the phase boundaries in both the Hermitian and non-Hermitian cases. Notably, we find that the combined interplay of non-Hermiticity and RSOC drives topological transitions at significantly lower potential strengths compared to the Hermitian limit. We derive analytical expressions for the topological phase transitions in both cases and validate our predictions through numerical calculations of energy spectra and real-space winding numbers. This work provides a comprehensive understanding of how non-Hermiticity and RSOC cooperatively reshape topological phase diagrams in one-dimensional superconducting systems.
title Topological boundaries in non-Hermitian p-wave Kitaev chains with Rashba spin-orbit coupling
topic Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Superconductivity
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09676