Regular Article

Topological edge states in the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model subject to balanced particle gain and loss

¹ Institut für Theoretische Physik 1, Universität Stuttgart, 70550 Stuttgart, Germany
² Institut für Theoretische Physik and Center for Quantum Science, Universität Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 14, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
³ Physik und ihre Didaktik, Universität Stuttgart, 70550 Stuttgart, Germany

^a e-mail: wunner@itp1.uni-stuttgart.de

Received: 18 September 2018
Published online: 11 December 2018

Abstract

We investigate the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model in presence of an injection and removal of particles, introduced via a master equation in Lindblad form. It is shown that the dynamics of the density matrix follows the predictions of calculations in which the gain and loss are modeled by complex PT-symmetric potentials. In particular it is found that there is a clear distinction in the dynamics between the topologically different cases known from the stationary eigenstates.