Higher-order Exceptional Points Induced by Non-Markovian Environments

Abstract: Exceptional points (EPs) have consistently held a central role in non-Hermitian physics due to their unique physical properties and potential applications. They have been intensively explored in parity-time ($\mathcal {P}\mathcal {T}$)-symmetric systems or other non-Hermitian systems; however, they barely investigated in pseudo-Hermitian systems with non-Markovian environments. In this work, we study higher-order EPs in three coupled cavities (denoted as $a$, $b_1$, and $b_2$) under pseudo-Hermitian conditions. Specifically, the cavity $a$ simultaneously interacts with two Markovian environments, while the cavity $b_1$ and $b_2$ couples with the respective Markovian environments. Through coherent perfect absorption (CPA) of two input fields with the cavity $a$, we obtain an effective gain for the system. Under certain parametric conditions, the effective Hamiltonian of the system holds pseudo-Hermiticity, where the third-order exceptional point (EP3) can be observed by measuring the output spectrum of the system. Moreover, we generalize the results to the non-Markovian regimes (only two environments coupling with the cavity $a$ are non-Markovian, while the other two environments coupling with cavities $b_1$ and $b_2$ are Markovian), which leads to the emergence of fourth-order exceptional points (EP4) and fifth-order exceptional points (EP5). In particular, EP4 and EP5 in the non-Markovian limit (corresponding to the infinite spectral width) can return to EP3 under the Markovian approximation. Finally, we extend the systems to more general non-Hermitian ones without pseudo-Hermitian constraints and find the higher-order EPs (EP6 and EP7), where all four environments are non-Markovian. The study presents expansions of non-Hermitian physics into the field of non-Markovian dynamics and anticipates the profound impact in quantum optics and precision measurement.