Localization in microcavities revealed by phase-space non-Hermitian skin effect
Abstract
Contrary to the semiclassical expectation for fully chaotic systems, localization of resonances is found to be a common feature in open microcavities. In spiral-shaped dielectric microcavities, a substantial fraction of resonances localize on polygonal patterns in real space, are chiral, and their momentum distributions accumulate near the critical line for total internal reflection. Despite the extensive investigation, the physical mechanism responsible for their remarkable abundance has remained a long-standing question. Addressing this, we reveal a physical correspondence between an inhomogeneous-loss Hatano-Nelson model and the dielectric phase space of a spiral microcavity. We show that the combination of geometry-induced momentum drift and refractive escape yields a generalized non-Hermitian skin effect in the phase space momentum. We identify this mechanism as the origin of the critical-line localization of resonances in open chaotic spiral microcavities, extending the skin-effect concept beyond nonreciprocal lattices to phase space and to open chaotic wave systems.
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BibTeX
@misc{ryu2026localization,
title = {{Localization in microcavities revealed by phase-space non-Hermitian skin effect}},
author = {Jung-Wan Ryu and Yong-Hoon Lee and Muhan Choi and Chang-Hwan Yi and Martina Hentschel},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.29795},
eprint = {2608.29795},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.29795},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Localization in microcavities revealed by phase-space non-Hermitian skin effect
AU - Jung-Wan Ryu
AU - Yong-Hoon Lee
AU - Muhan Choi
AU - Chang-Hwan Yi
AU - Martina Hentschel
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.29795
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.29795
AB - Contrary to the semiclassical expectation for fully chaotic systems, localization of resonances is found to be a common feature in open microcavities. In spiral-shaped dielectric microcavities, a substantial fraction of resonances localize on polygonal patterns in real space, are chiral, and their momentum distributions accumulate near the critical line for total internal reflection. Despite the extensive investigation, the physical mechanism responsible for their remarkable abundance has remained a long-standing question. Addressing this, we reveal a physical correspondence between an inhomogeneous-loss Hatano-Nelson model and the dielectric phase space of a spiral microcavity. We show that the combination of geometry-induced momentum drift and refractive escape yields a generalized non-Hermitian skin effect in the phase space momentum. We identify this mechanism as the origin of the critical-line localization of resonances in open chaotic spiral microcavities, extending the skin-effect concept beyond nonreciprocal lattices to phase space and to open chaotic wave systems.
ER -