Dissipation and interaction-controlled non-Hermitian skin effects
Phys. Rev. B 113, 035444 – Published 29 January, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/qrh6-vx64
Abstract
Non-Hermitian skin effects (NHSEs) have recently been extensively studied at the single-particle level. When two-particle interactions become dominant, novel non-Hermitian phenomena can emerge. In this work, we propose an experimentally accessible mechanism to induce and control NHSEs in interacting and reciprocal dissipative systems. We consider both one-dimensional (1D) and 2D Bose-Hubbard lattices subject to staggered two-particle loss combined with synthetic magnetic flux and long-range hopping. When the two-particle loss is small, the bound eigenstates (e.g., doublons and triplons) are all localized at the same boundary due to the interplay between the magnetic flux and staggered two-particle loss. In contrast, for strong two-particle loss, the skin-mode localization direction of the bound particles is unexpectedly reversed. This reversal stems from the combined effect of the staggered two-particle loss, synthetic magnetic flux, and long-range hopping, through which virtual second-order and third-order hopping processes induce effectively strong nonreciprocal hopping of doublons. Our results open up a new avenue for exploring novel non-Hermitian phenomena in interacting systems.
