Symmetry as a route to generalized bosonic Kitaev chains

Abstract

The bosonic Kitaev chain (BKC) model is a deceptively simple looking quadratic pairing Hamiltonian. Despite being purely Hermitian, it exhibits a number of striking non-Hermitian topological phenomena, including skin effects. We show here how symmetries play a key role in this model, and how identifying these allows one to develop generalized BKC-like models. We emphasize the surprising fact that any quadratic bosonic pairing Hamiltonian with a sublattice (chiral) symmetry necessarily has a dynamical matrix with an effective time reversal symmetry. This symmetry is unrelated to physical time-reversal, but enables non-trivial topological invariants. We also discuss how this symmetry is unrelated to another key property of the BKC, the decoupling of quadrature dynamics. This feature can instead be connected to a distinct symmetry, namely an effective particle-hole symmetry of the dynamical matrix. We discuss non-trivial generalized BKC models that only keep one of these two effective symmetries intact. We also provide a classification of all translationally-invariant 1D pairing Hamiltonians, and show connections between the BKC and a well-studied non-Hermitian fermionic system, the symplectic Hatano-Nelson model.