Two-body interaction induced phase transitions and intermediate phases in nonreciprocal non-Hermitian quasicrystals

Abstract

Non-Hermitian phenomena, such as exceptional points, non-Hermitian skin effects, and topologically nontrivial phases have attracted continued attention. In this work, we reveal how interactions and nonreciprocal hopping could collectively influence the behavior of two interacting bosons on quasiperiodic lattices. Focusing on the Bose-Hubbard model with Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper quasiperiodic modulations and hopping asymmetry, we discover that interactions could enlarge the localization transition point of the noninteracting system into an intermediate mobility edge phase, in which localized doublons formed by bosonic pairs can coexist with delocalized states. Under the open boundary condition, the bosonic doublons could further show non-Hermitian skin effects, realizing doublon condensation at the edges, and their direction of skin-localization can be flexibly tuned by the hopping parameters. A framework is developed to characterize the spectral, localization, and topological transitions accompanying these phenomena. Our work advances the understanding of localization and topological phases in non-Hermitian systems, particularly in relation to multiparticle interactions.