We address the breakdown of the bulk-boundary correspondence observed in
non-Hermitian systems, where open and periodic systems can have distinct phase
diagrams. The correspondence can be completely restored by considering the
Hamiltonian's singular value decomposition instead of its eigendecomposition.
This leads to a natural topological description in terms of a flattened
singular decomposition. This description is equivalent to the usual approach
for Hermitian systems and coincides with a recent proposal for the
classification of non-Hermitian systems. We generalize the notion of the
entanglement spectrum to non-Hermitian systems, and show that the edge physics
is indeed completely captured by the periodic bulk Hamiltonian. We exemplify
our approach by considering the chiral non-Hermitian Su-Schrieffer-Heger and
Chern insulator models. Our work advocates a different perspective on
topological non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, paving the way to a better
understanding of their entanglement structure.Comment: 6+5 pages, 8 figure