Localization with non-Hermitian off-diagonal disorder

Abstract: In this work, we discuss a non-Hermitian system described via a one-dimensional single-particle tight-binding model, where the non-Hermiticity is governed by random nearest-neighbour tunnellings, such that the left-to-right and right-to-left hopping strengths are unequal. A physical situation of completely real eigenspectrum arises owing to the Hamiltonian's tridiagonal matrix structure under a simple sign conservation of the product of the conjugate nearest-neighbour tunnelling terms. The off-diagonal disorder leads the non-Hermitian system to a delocalization-localization crossover in finite systems. The emergent nature of the crossover is recognized through a finite-size spectral analysis. The system enters into a localized phase for infinitesimal disorder strength in the thermodynamic limit. We perform a careful scaling analysis of localization length, inverse participation ratio (IPR), and energy splitting and report the corresponding scaling exponents. Noticeably, in contrast to the diagonal disorder, the density of states (DOS) has a singularity at E=0 in the presence of the off-diagonal disorder and the corresponding wavefunction remains delocalized for any given disorder strength.