Tight-binding lattices with an oscillating imaginary gauge field

Abstract: We consider non-Hermitian dynamics of a quantum particle hopping on a one-dimensional tight-binding lattice made of $N$ sites with asymmetric hopping rates induced by a time-periodic oscillating imaginary gauge field. A deeply different behavior is found depending on the lattice topology. While in a linear chain (open boundary conditions) an oscillating field can lead to a complex quasi energy spectrum via a multiple parametric resonance, in a ring topology (Born-von Karman periodic boundary conditions) an entirely real quasi energy spectrum can be found and the dynamics is pseudo-Hermitian. In the large $N$ limit, parametric instability and pseudo-Hermitian dynamics in the two different lattice topologies are physically explained on the basis of a simple picture of wave packet propagation.