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arXiv:2603.20330

Competing skin effect and quasiperiodic localization in the non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain: Reentrant delocalization, spectral topology destruction, and entanglement suppression

Souvik Ghosh

cond-mat.mes-hallcond-mat.mtrl-scicond-mat.stat-mechquant-phSubmitted Mar 20, 2026• Announced Mar 23, 2026• Revised May 18, 2026 (v3)
v1 · Mar 20, 2026v2 · Mar 31, 2026v3 · May 18, 2026
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Abstract

We investigate the interplay between the non-Hermitian skin effect and Aubry-André-Harper (AAH) quasiperiodic disorder in a one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain with nonreciprocal hopping. By exact diagonalization, transfer-matrix analysis, and an analytical similarity-transformation argument, we map the full ( , $δ$) phase diagram, where A is the AAH modulation strength and the nonreciprocity parameter. We identify five distinct regimes: ( ) topological with extended bulk, (II) AAH-localized, (III) skin-localized, (IV) fully localized, and a previously unreported (V) competition regime exhibiting reentrant partial delocalization, in which intermediate quasiperiodic disorder disrupts the directional skin accumulation before ultimately Anderson-localizing all states. Using phase-averaged diagnostics and finite-size scaling, we confirm that the reentrant regime is robust, characterized by a non-monotonic inverse participation ratio that sharpens with increasing system size. We derive an analytical expression for the modified localization boundary $λ_{c}(δ)=2\sqrt{v_{eff}w}$ with $v_{vff}=\sqrt{v^{2}-δ^{2}}$, which agrees with numerical Lyapunov exponent calculations. We further show that quasiperiodic disorder progressively unwinds the complex spectral loops, destroying the point-gap topology at a critical strength distinct from the band-topological transition ; that the skin effect suppresses entanglement entropy to near-zero values while sufficiently strong AAH disorder partially restores it ; and that the SSH sublattice structure absent in the widely studied non-Hermitian AAH chain is essential for producing the five-phase landscape, as demonstrated by direct comparison with the non-dimerized limit.

Comments
8 pages, 11 figures

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We investigate the interplay between the non-Hermitian skin effect and Aubry-André-Harper (AAH) quasiperiodic disorder in a one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain with nonreciprocal hopping. By exact diagonalization, transfer-matrix analysis, and an analytical similarity-transformation argument, we map the full ( , δδδ) phase diagram, where A is the AAH modulation strength and the nonreciprocity parameter. We identify five distinct regimes: ( ) topological with extended bulk, (II) AAH-localized, (III) skin-localized, (IV) fully localized, and a previously unreported (V) competition regime exhibiting reentrant partial delocalization, in which intermediate quasiperiodic disorder disrupts the directional skin accumulation before ultimately Anderson-localizing all states. Using phase-averaged diagnostics and finite-size scaling, we confirm that the reentrant regime is robust, characterized by a non-monotonic inverse participation ratio that sharpens with increasing system size. We derive an analytical expression for the modified localization boundary λc(δ)=2veffwλ_{c}(δ)=2\sqrt{v_{eff}w}λc​(δ)=2veff​w​ with vvff=v2−δ2v_{vff}=\sqrt{v^{2}-δ^{2}}vvff​=v2−δ2​, which agrees with numerical Lyapunov exponent calculations. We further show that quasiperiodic disorder progressively unwinds the complex spectral loops, destroying the point-gap topology at a critical strength distinct from the band-topological transition ; that the skin effect suppresses entanglement entropy to near-zero values while sufficiently strong AAH disorder partially restores it ; and that the SSH sublattice structure absent in the widely studied non-Hermitian AAH chain is essential for producing the five-phase landscape, as demonstrated by direct comparison with the non-dimerized limit.
Localization in non-Hermitian quasicrystals can differ fundamentally from its Hermitian counterpart when non-reciprocity is spatially disordered. Here we study a one-dimensional non-Hermitian Aubry-André-Harper chain with a Bernoulli imaginary gauge field and quasiperiodic onsite modulation. In the nearest-neighbor limit, we identify an anomalous transition from a fully erratic non-Hermitian skin effect (ENHSE) phase to a fully localized phase. Although the fractal dimension vanishes in both regimes, the Lyapunov exponent and the fluctuation of the eigenstate center of mass sharply distinguish them. For generic finite-size realizations, this transition is further accompanied by a complex-to-real spectral change under periodic boundary conditions and a change of spectral winding from nontrivial to trivial. With weak next-nearest-neighbor hopping, we uncover an anomalous mobility edge at the same location as in the Hermitian generalized Aubry-André-Harper model, but separating Anderson-localized states from ENHSE-type macroscopic-accumulation states rather than extended states. We further show that this anomalous localization structure is reflected in spectral winding and wave-packet dynamics: single realizations exhibit winding-dependent drift, winding-resolved averaging preserves opposite directional responses, and full disorder averaging largely restores Hermitian-like transport. Our results establish practical diagnostics of anomalous localization and mobility edges in non-Hermitian quasicrystals.
Quasiperiodic lattices can host critical eigenstates, whereas nonreciprocal hopping in non-Hermitian lattices can induce non-Hermitian skin effect. In this work, we investigate localization phenomena in a Hatano--Nelson model with quasiperiodically modulated hopping amplitudes, where nonreciprocity arises from unequal modulation strengths of the right and left hoppings. Using a non-unitary gauge transformation, we map the non-Hermitian system into a Hermitian quasiperiodic system and obtain an exact analytical expression for the Lyapunov exponent in the thermodynamic limit. Under periodic boundary conditions, inverse participation ratios and finite-size scaling analysis are used to identify the quasiperiodic critical regimes. The comparison shows that parameter regimes hosting quasiperiodic critical states under periodic boundary conditions can exhibit the non-Hermitian skin effect under open boundary conditions. Furthermore, the non-Hermitian skin effect associated with quasiperiodic critical regimes is also observed in representative long-range hopping models and multiband extensions. Our results provide an analytically controlled perspective on how quasiperiodicity, modulated nonreciprocity, and boundary conditions jointly shape the non-Hermitian skin effect in critical regimes.
We investigate the topological phase in a one-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain in the presence of a finite concentration of non-Hermitian substitutional impurities. Our primary focus is the discovery of a deterministic mechanism to actively reconfigure the topological phase boundaries by introducing site-dependent, non-reciprocal intracell and intercell hopping amplitudes. Specifically, breaking the internal structural symmetry of the non-reciprocal impurity hoppings induces a targeted macroscopic displacement of the critical point. This mechanism allows for the controlled expansion or compression of the topological phase strictly via local defect asymmetry. We validate this boundary displacement through finite-size scaling analysis. The extracted correlation length critical exponents (ν≈1.455ν\approx 1.455ν≈1.455 and ν≈1.397ν\approx 1.397ν≈1.397 for symmetric and asymmetric configurations, respectively) confirm a disorder-induced departure from the pristine SSH universality class, with the exponent diverging at high defect densities. We also report an impurity-induced real-to-complex spectral transition geometrically characterized by the Non-Hermitian Skin Effect. Ultimately, our results establish how isolated non-Hermitian asymmetries cooperatively interact to deterministically shift macroscopic topological protection.
The non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE), which drives bulk states toward system boundaries, modifies bulk-boundary correspondence and complicates the identification of topological edge modes. Although breaking translational symmetry is known to influence this behavior, a systematic comparison of different structural classes remains limited. Here we investigate periodic, random, and quasiperiodic (Fibonacci) systems using a one-dimensional non-Hermitian quantum walk model. By matching the local scattering parameters in a topologically nontrivial regime, we isolate the role of spatial structure in the presence of the NHSE. We find that periodic systems exhibit pronounced boundary accumulation of bulk states. Random systems suppress this accumulation through Anderson localization, but the topological gap becomes partially filled with localized in-gap states. In contrast, the Fibonacci quasiperiodic system suppresses large-scale boundary accumulation while maintaining a well-defined topological gap. Analysis of the wave functions suggests that the hierarchical quasiperiodic structure fragments bulk states across multiple length scales, thereby mitigating the NHSE. These results identify deterministic quasiperiodicity as a distinct structural regime for controlling non-Hermitian skin dynamics and isolating topological boundary modes.
We investigate the entanglement dynamics of the non-Hermitian Aubry-Andr\'e-Harper chain. The results reveal that by increasing quasiperiodic strength, a phase transition occurs from the area law induced by non-Hermitian skin effect to the area law arising from Anderson localization. For the former, the entanglement entropy follows a nonmonotonic process, i.e., it increases first, then oscillates, and finally converges to a stable value while, for the latter, the entanglement entropy remains low because the wave function is not expandable in Anderson's localization region. The early-stage behavior of entanglement entropy indicates that the two area-law cases are of different phases. Interestingly, the volume-law behavior emerges at the critical point between these two area-law phases. Our study reveals that the area laws induced by the skin effect and the Anderson localization are two different phases, and that a volume law can emerge at the phase transition point. The understanding of the entanglement phase transition induced by disorder and skin effect is thus deepened.
The non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) refers to the accumulation of an extensive number of eigenstates at system boundaries under open boundary conditions (OBCs). As a dynamical consequence, wave packets in such systems drift and ultimately accumulate at a boundary, giving rise to the dynamical skin effect (DSE). While strong quasiperiodic potentials are known to suppress the DSE by inducing localization, we show that the introduction of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) noise unexpectedly restores it. Using perturbative analysis, we demonstrate that noise effectively maps the non-Hermitian Schrödinger dynamics onto a non-reciprocal master equation, whose complex spectrum develops a noise-induced point gap. This mechanism enables delocalization, reinstates directional transport, and revives the DSE even in regimes where the static NHSE is absent. Moreover, the relaxation dynamics exhibit a non-monotonic dependence on noise strength, reflecting a competition between noise-assisted delocalization and noise-induced decoherence. Our results uncover a noise-enabled mechanism for resurrecting the DSE and suggest a new route for controlling transport in quasiperiodic, open quantum systems.