Spectral preservation under momentum-dependent similarity transformations in non-Hermitian lattice systems

Abstract

We investigate the conditions under which momentum-dependent similarity transformations preserve spectral properties of lattice Hamiltonians with open boundary conditions (OBC). While such transformations exactly preserve spectra in infinite systems, their application to finite systems introduces subtleties due to the long-range nature of the inverse transformation in real space. For general traceless $2\times 2$ Hamiltonians, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for reduction to skew-diagonal form via constant similarity transforms, providing explicit transformation matrices for all cases. We then establish rigorous conditions for bulk spectral preservation under momentum-dependent transformations: the generalized Brillouin zone of $H$ must lie inside the smallest zero of $\det S(z)$ (the two-radius condition $r_{\mathrm{GBZ}}^{\max}<z_{\min}$), together with a spectral-stability (no critical non-Hermitian skin effect) condition on $H$. Two-sidedness of $S(z)$ governs only the modification of a finite number of boundary eigenvalues, not the bulk. Our results establish when bulk topological invariants computed in transformed coordinates reliably predict boundary physics, with implications for non-Hermitian systems, photonic crystals, and other platforms where chiral or hidden symmetries emerge only after appropriate basis changes.