Non-Hermitian Band Topology and Edge States in Atomic Lattices

Abstract: We investigate the band structure and topological phases of one- and two-dimensional bipartite atomic lattices mediated by long-range dissipative radiative coupling. By deriving an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian for the single-excitation sector, we demonstrate that the low-energy dynamics of the system are governed by a Dirac equation with a complex Fermi velocity. We analyze the associated topological invariants for both the SSH and honeycomb models, utilizing synthetic gauge fields to break time-reversal symmetry in the latter. Finally, we explicitly verify the non-Hermitian bulk-edge correspondence by deriving analytical solutions for edge states localized at domain boundaries.