Diagnosis of bulk phase diagram of non-reciprocal topological lattices by impurity modes

Abstract

We study the single impurity problem in the non-Hermitian lattice described by the non-reciprocal Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model and obtain the phase diagram of localized bound states induced by the impurity. The existence of analytical results permits us to determine the phase boundaries exactly, which separate regions with different number of bound states. Particularly, in the limit of strong impurity potential, we find that the phase boundaries of mid-gap bound states are identical to the boundaries of topological phase diagrams of the bulk system in the absence of impurity. The existence of correspondence between mid-gap impurity modes and bulk phases indicate that we are able to diagnose the bulk phase diagram of the non-reciprocal topological model by its impurity modes.