Non-Hermitian chiral magnetic effect in equilibrium

Abstract

We analyze the chiral magnetic effect for non-Hermitian fermionic systems using the bi-orthogonal formulation of quantum mechanics. In contrast to the Hermitian counterparts, we show that the chiral magnetic effect takes place in equilibrium when a non-Hermitian system is considered. The key observation is that for non-Hermitian charged systems, there is no strict charge conservation as understood in Hermitian systems, so the Bloch theorem preventing currents in the thermodynamic limit and in equilibrium does not apply.