Knotted non-Hermitian metals

Abstract

We report on the occurrence of knotted metallic band structures as stable topological phases in non-Hermitian (NH) systems. These knotted NH metals are characterized by open Fermi surfaces, known in mathematics as Seifert surfaces, that are bounded by knotted lines of exceptional points. Quite remarkably, and in contrast to the situation in Hermitian systems, no fine tuning or symmetries are required in order to stabilize these exotic phases of matter. By explicit construction, we derive microscopic tight-binding models hosting knotted NH metals with strictly short-ranged hopping, and investigate the stability of their topological properties against perturbations. Building up on recently developed experimental techniques for the realization of NH band structures, we discuss how the proposed models may be experimentally implemented in photonic systems.