Imaginary Gauge Field and Non-Hermitian Topological Transition Emerging Through Attenuation-Gauge Duality in Conservative Systems

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Hauptverfasser: Nie, Haoran, Jiang, Chaoran, Shen, Xiangying, Xu, Lei
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Nie, Haoran
Jiang, Chaoran
Shen, Xiangying
Xu, Lei
author_facet Nie, Haoran
Jiang, Chaoran
Shen, Xiangying
Xu, Lei
contents Non-Hermitian physics traditionally relies on active gain--loss modulation or non-reciprocal couplings, which often introduce significant complexity, compromise stability, and offer very limited scalability in conservative systems. Here we propose an attenuation-gauge duality paradigm in which non-Hermitian topology emerges within fully passive, conservative systems through coupling to a structured reservoir. We derive that a spatially varying reservoir can establish an attenuation-gauge duality, where the spatial variation manifests as an emergent imaginary gauge field in the effective dynamics. It drives the boundary accumulation of skin modes while preserving energy conservation, analogous to Feshbach projection in quantum open systems. We validate this universal wave paradigm via macroscopic mechanical metamaterials, demonstrating that the direction of the skin effect can be reversed by tuning a single passive coupling parameter$t_\perp$, driven by a topological phase transition characterized by the spectral winding number. This framework also allows for a nonlinear extension, where amplitude-dependent coupling can induce intrinsic topological transitions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_17557
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Imaginary Gauge Field and Non-Hermitian Topological Transition Emerging Through Attenuation-Gauge Duality in Conservative Systems
Nie, Haoran
Jiang, Chaoran
Shen, Xiangying
Xu, Lei
Other Condensed Matter
Quantum Physics
Non-Hermitian physics traditionally relies on active gain--loss modulation or non-reciprocal couplings, which often introduce significant complexity, compromise stability, and offer very limited scalability in conservative systems. Here we propose an attenuation-gauge duality paradigm in which non-Hermitian topology emerges within fully passive, conservative systems through coupling to a structured reservoir. We derive that a spatially varying reservoir can establish an attenuation-gauge duality, where the spatial variation manifests as an emergent imaginary gauge field in the effective dynamics. It drives the boundary accumulation of skin modes while preserving energy conservation, analogous to Feshbach projection in quantum open systems. We validate this universal wave paradigm via macroscopic mechanical metamaterials, demonstrating that the direction of the skin effect can be reversed by tuning a single passive coupling parameter$t_\perp$, driven by a topological phase transition characterized by the spectral winding number. This framework also allows for a nonlinear extension, where amplitude-dependent coupling can induce intrinsic topological transitions.
title Imaginary Gauge Field and Non-Hermitian Topological Transition Emerging Through Attenuation-Gauge Duality in Conservative Systems
topic Other Condensed Matter
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17557