We consider a generalization of the non-Hermitian
PT symmetric Jaynes-Cummings {Hamiltonian, recently introduced for studying optical phenomena with time-dependent physical parameters, that includes environment-induced decay}. In particular, we investigate the interaction of a two-level fermionic system (such as a two-level atom) with a single bosonic field mode in a cavity. The states of {the} two-level system are allowed to decay because of the interaction with the environment, {and this is included phenomenologically in our non-Hermitian Hamiltonian by introducing complex energies for the fermion system. We focus our attention} on the occurrence of exceptional points in the spectrum of the Hamiltonian, clarifying its mathematical and physical meaning.
Phenomenological non-Hermitian Hamiltonians track selected signatures of complex reservoir dynamics, while post-selected no-jump effective Hamiltonians derived from microscopic open-system theory reveal the underlying system--reservoir physics. We derive such a Hamiltonian for the open Jaynes--Cummings model using a Moore--Penrose normalized
su(2) representation that removes the vacuum-sector singularity and diagonalizes the full Hamiltonian by one operator rotation. Starting from a zero-temperature bosonic reservoir, we obtain a Gorini--Kossakowski--Sudarshan--Lindblad master equation under the Born--Markov approximation with full Bohr-frequency resolution. We use partial Bohr-frequency resolution to build a consistent post-selected no-jump Hamiltonian near exceptional points, where decay rates become comparable to Rabi frequencies and remove the scale separation behind full resolution. The normalized
su(2) form of the resulting non-Hermitian Jaynes--Cummings Hamiltonian reveals the effects of Lamb-shifted detuning, diagonal loss imbalance, and reservoir-modified coupling. Our microscopic exceptional-point analysis recovers the experimentally reported single-excitation exceptional point for unequal independent losses and identifies regimes absent from the standard phenomenological model; for example, equal correlated losses with orthogonal channel phase produce a second-order exceptional point at the same loss-to-coupling ratio in every excitation sector.
It is shown that for a given Hermitian Hamiltonian possessing supersymmetry, there is always a non-Hermitian Jaynes–Cummings-type Hamiltonian (JCTH) admitting entirely real spectra. The parent supersymmetric Hamiltonian and the corresponding non-Hermitian JCTH are simultaneously diagonalizable. The exact eigenstates of these non-Hermitian Hamiltonians are constructed algebraically for certain shape-invariant potentials, including a non-Hermitian version of the standard Jaynes–Cummings (JC) model for which the parent supersymmetric Hamiltonian is the superoscillator. It is also shown that a non-Hermitian version of the several physically motivated generalizations of the JC model admits entirely real spectra. The positive-definite metric operator in the Hilbert space is constructed explicitly along with the introduction of a new inner product structure, so that the eigenstates form a complete set of orthonormal vectors and the time evolution is unitary.