Non-Hermitian skin effect in arbitrary dimensions: non-Bloch band theory and classification

Abstract: Non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) is a distinctive phenomenon in non-Hermitian systems, characterized by a significant accumulation of eigenstates at system boundaries. While well-understood in one dimension via non-Bloch band theory, unraveling the NHSE in higher dimensions faces formidable challenges due to the diversity of open boundary conditions or lattice geometries and inevitable numerical errors. Key issues, including higher-dimensional non-Bloch band theory, geometric dependency, spectral convergence and stability, and a complete classification of NHSE, remain elusive. In this work, we address these challenges by presenting a geometry-adaptive non-Bloch band theory in arbitrary dimensions, through the lens of spectral potential. Our formulation accurately determines the energy spectra, density of states, and generalized Brillouin zone for a given geometry in the thermodynamic limit (TDL), revealing their geometric dependencies. Furthermore, we systematically classify the NHSE into critical and non-reciprocal types using net winding numbers. In the critical case, we identify novel scale-free skin modes residing on the boundary. In the nonreciprocal case, the skin modes manifest in various forms, including normal or anomalous corner modes, boundary modes or scale-free modes. We reveal the non-convergence and instability of the non-Bloch spectra in the presence of scale-free modes and attribute it to the non-exchangeability of the zero-perturbation limit and the TDL. The instability drives the energy spectra towards the Amoeba spectra in the critical case. Our findings provide a unified non-Bloch band theory governing the energy spectra, density of states, and generalized Brillouin zone in the TDL, offering a comprehensive understanding of NHSE in arbitrary dimensions.