Rights statement: ©2011 American Physical Society
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Universal routes to spontaneous PT-symmetry breaking in non-hermitian quantum systems
AU - Schomerus, Henning
N1 - ©2011 American Physical Society
PY - 2011/3/16
Y1 - 2011/3/16
N2 - PT-symmetric systems can have a real spectrum even when their Hamiltonian is non-Hermitian, but develop a complex spectrum when the degree of non-Hermiticity increases. Here we utilize random-matrix theory to show that this spontaneous PT-symmetry breaking can occur via two distinct mechanisms, whose predominance is associated to different universality classes. Present optical experiments fall into the orthogonal class, where symmetry-induced level crossings render the characteristic absorption rate independent of the coupling strength between the symmetry-related parts of the system.
AB - PT-symmetric systems can have a real spectrum even when their Hamiltonian is non-Hermitian, but develop a complex spectrum when the degree of non-Hermiticity increases. Here we utilize random-matrix theory to show that this spontaneous PT-symmetry breaking can occur via two distinct mechanisms, whose predominance is associated to different universality classes. Present optical experiments fall into the orthogonal class, where symmetry-induced level crossings render the characteristic absorption rate independent of the coupling strength between the symmetry-related parts of the system.
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevA.83.030101
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevA.83.030101
M3 - Journal article
VL - 83
JO - Physical review a
JF - Physical review a
SN - 1050-2947
IS - 3
M1 - 030101
ER -