Non-Hermitian Kitaev chain with complex periodic and quasiperiodic potentials* *Project supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant Nos. 2016YFA0300600 and 2016YFA0302104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 12074410, 12047502, 11934015, 11947301, and 11774397), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDB33000000), and the fellowship of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation

Abstract

We study the topological properties of the one-dimensional non-Hermitian Kitaev model with complex either periodic or quasiperiodic potentials. We obtain the energy spectrum and the phase diagrams of the system by using the transfer matrix method as well as the topological invariant. The phase transition points are given analytically. The Majorana zero modes in the topological nontrivial regimes are obtained. Focusing on the quasiperiodic potential, we obtain the phase transition from the topological superconducting phase to the Anderson localization, which is accompanied with the Anderson localization–delocalization transition in this non-Hermitian system. We also find that the topological regime can be reduced by increasing the non-Hermiticity.