Swallowtail Catastrophe Found in Non-Hermitian Systems: Study

Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan University and Southern University of Science and Technology recently unveiled a possible connection between catastrophe theory and non-Hermitian physics. Their paper, published in Nature Physics, specifically shows that a structurally rich degeneracy, known as the swallowtail catastrophe, can naturally exist in non-Hermitian systems. The recent work by this team of researchers establishes a connection between the mathematical catastrophe theory and non-Hermitian physics, two areas of study that were previously perceived as unrelated.