We consider particle-hole symmetric photonic graphene with balanced gain and loss. We show that edge states with purely imaginary eigenvalues appear along the zigzag edge. We propose an idea that these edge states are protected by spontaneously broken particle-hole symmetry. We discuss that the edge states are topological in the sense that the exceptional rings are robust against symmetry protecting disorder. If the disorder is too strong to restore the spontaneously broken particle-hole symmetry, then such protection of the edge states is lost.

• Received 20 June 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.98.042104