Non-Hermitian Light Beams

@misc{novitsky2026nonhermitian,
  title = {{Non-Hermitian Light Beams}},
  author = {Andrey Novitsky and Dongliang Gao and Iryna Kaputskaya and Dawei Li and Andrey Bogdanov and Lei Gao and Mikhail Rybin},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.10011},
  eprint = {2609.10011},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10011},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Non-Hermitian Light Beams
AU  - Andrey Novitsky
AU  - Dongliang Gao
AU  - Iryna Kaputskaya
AU  - Dawei Li
AU  - Andrey Bogdanov
AU  - Lei Gao
AU  - Mikhail Rybin
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/09
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.10011
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10011
AB  - Non-Hermitian systems provide remarkable features actively studied in modern photonics. Non-Hermiticity is often related to the properties of open structures and devices, which involve lossy and gain channels. Here, we reveal that electromagnetic fields themselves can be designed in a non-Hermitian way, proposing an additional degree of freedom in non-Hermitian physics. Within classical electromagnetic wave theory, we show that the non-Hermitian behaviors may stem not only from the dispersive properties of the waves, but also from the peculiarities of the light spatial spectrum and local structure of the fields. For the nondiffracting light beams, we identify exceptional points detaching symmetric and asymmetric non-Hermitian phases related to the shape of the beam's intensity profile, the non-Hermiticity being well recognized only for non-paraxial beams. In the local structure of the electromagnetic fields and Poynting vector, we determine exceptional lines differentiating non-Hermitian phases stemming from the behavior of streamlines. We believe that the concept of non-Hermitian light beams will enrich our knowledge of the light-matter interaction.
ER  -