Pseudo-Landau Thermal Diffusion

Landau quantization of two-dimensional free electrons and massless Dirac fermions plays a key role underlying many quantum phenomena in condensed matter physics. It usually requires the magnetic field, which arranges the charge carriers associated with the harmonic oscillation on a ladder of discrete Landau levels with a dissipationless edge state. Nevertheless, the presence of intrinsic dissipation and absence of a pseudomagnetic field in thermal diffusion precludes the observation of Landau quantization. Here, we report a recipe of creating a synthetic gauge serving as a pseudomagnetic field and achieve Landau quantization on real- and imaginary-valued spectra, on both of which complex pseudo-Landau levels are identified as isometric ladders. We experimentally observe the macroscopic quantum thermal Hall-like effect induced by dissipation, which is distinguished by a plateaulike effective thermal resistance. Our findings open up a unique paradigm for manipulating heat transfer and create an insightful platform for exploring dissipative non-Hermitian physics.