Boundary-localized non-Hermitian modes in an absorbing quantum walk

Source abstract

Abstract We introduce and solve from first principles a continuous-time quantum walk with absorption generated by a Lindblad boundary sink of arbitrary strength. Projecting onto the surviving walker sector maps the problem to a
non-Hermitian tight-binding Hamiltonian with a rank-one imaginary defect
on the semi-infinite line. We obtain closed-form expressions for the exact propagator, from which the first-passage statistics follow. Weak coupling limits absorption through inefficient transfer into the sink, whereas for strong dissipation, occupation at the boundary is suppressed by Zeno-like reflection, accompanied by the emergence of a localized non-Hermitian mode. Despite the different physical origins of these suppression mechanisms,
their respective absorption probabilities exhibit an asymptotic duality. The evolution is conveniently visualized in phase space, where the localized mode has an exponentially confined Wigner representation near the edge site.