Anderson transition in disordered Hatano-Nelson systems

Abstract: We illuminate the fundamental mechanism responsible for the transition between the non-Hermitian skin effect and defect-induced Anderson localization in the bulk via the study of Lyapunov exponents. We obtain a proof that the change of the topological invariant associated with an eigenvalue coincides with the eigenvector crossover from non-Hermitian skin effect to Anderson localization, establishing a universal criterion for localization behavior.