Scale-free wave localization at topological multicriticality

Abstract

Spatial wave localization at boundaries is conventionally restricted to exponential decay. Here, we observe a scale-free boundary mode exhibiting anomalous polynomial decay, highlighted by strictly linear spatial envelopes, driven by topological multicriticality in acoustic metamaterials. We establish a universal geometric bulk-boundary correspondence rooted in singularity theory by mapping n-th order topological multicriticality onto Arnold An catastrophe. We prove that defectiveness in the spatial transfer matrix enforces a (n-1)-th power spatial decay of boundary modes. At a topological tri-critical point, the singularity of winding function manifests as an A2 fold catastrophe. This dictates a strictly linear spatial decay, marking a sharp departure from the conventional exponential scaling paradigm. Using acoustic metamaterial platforms tuned to a tricritical point, we experimentally demonstrate this linear decay envelope in 1D, and further generalize it to two-dimensional systems to realize scale-free corner modes with simultaneous linear decay along orthogonal directions. While existing critical topology frameworks rely on entanglement spectra to diagnose mode existence in gapless regimes, our work bridges catastrophe theory with topological matter at multicriticalities, advancing the field from abstract mode identification to deterministic real-space wavefunction engineering.