Does dissipation make electrons clump together more strongly?

Pumping dissipation into a textbook 1D quantum chain (the SSH model) with electron-electron repulsion reveals that the system's non-Hermitian nature doesn't just passively coexist with interactions — it amplifies them. Near exceptional points, low-energy states pile up and drive electrons into a pronounced charge density wave, an alternating pattern of electron-rich and electron-poor sites, far stronger than in a normal closed system. A real-space topological marker reliably tracks when this ordered phase destroys the underlying topological phase, offering a practical diagnostic for open quantum matter.