The rise and fall of the amplitude, and phase, around Exceptional Points: a Scattering matrix approach

Abstract

We analyze the behavior of a non-Hermitian opened one-dimensional quantum system with $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry. This system is built by a dimer, with balanced gains and losses described by a parameter $\gamma$. By varying $\gamma$ the system resonances, which are naturally separated, coalesce at the exceptional point (EP). The transmission spectrum is obtained by means of the scattering matrix ($S$ matrix) formalism and we examine the wave functions corresponding to the resonances as a function of $\gamma$. Specifically, we look for the behavior and distribution of the phases of the $S$ matrix before, at and after the EP.