Universal aspects of bulk density of states in non-Hermitian lattices

Abstract

Non-Hermitian lattice Hamiltonians generally exhibit strong boundary sensitivity, with periodic and open boundary conditions producing distinct density of states (DOS) in the complex-energy plane. This has led to the view that extended non-Hermitian systems lack a unique bulk DOS, with different prescriptions representing inequivalent bulk physics. Here, we show that this apparent ambiguity is largely illusory. For any finite-range tight-binding Hamiltonian, we establish a universal bulk structure: all DOS definitions arising as thermodynamic limits of finite systems share identical multipole moments and generate identical bulk dynamics at finite times and for observables measured far from boundaries. This universality is intimately tied to the thermodynamic Green's functions, which we show to be independent of the boundary condition for large enough complex frequencies. Among all equivalent descriptions, we identify the Brown measure - obtained via Hermitization and resolvent analysis - as a canonical and convenient representative of the bulk DOS, defined directly from the infinite-volume Hamiltonian. We further show that point-gap topology imposes additional universal constraints: boundary-dependent Green's functions are forced to coincide throughout topologically trivial point gaps. This, in particular, provides a systematic criterion, valid in arbitrary dimension, for determining where and how eigenvalues of different boundary truncations can accumulate in the complex plane, and precisely delineates the regime in which the DOS ambiguity retains physical significance.