Daniel Leykam, Vladimir V. Konotop, Anton S. Desyatnikov
We study the effect of lifting the degeneracy of vortex modes with a PT symmetric defect, using discrete vortices in a circular array of nonlinear waveguides as an example. When the defect is introduced, the degenerate linear vortex modes spontaneously break PT symmetry and acquire complex eigenvalues, but nonlinear propagating modes with real propagation constants can still exist. The stability of nonlinear modes depends on both the magnitude and the sign of the vortex charge, thus PT symmetric systems offer new mechanisms to control discrete vortices.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1052
Optics (physics.optics); Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS)
Alois Regensburger, Mohammad-Ali Miri, Christoph Bersch, Jakob Näger, Georgy Onishchukov, Demetrios N. Christodoulides, Ulf Peschel
We provide the first experimental demonstration of defect states in parity-time (PT) symmetric mesh-periodic potentials. Our results indicate that these localized modes can undergo an abrupt phase transition in spite of the fact that they remain localized in a PT-symmetric periodic environment. Even more intriguing is the possibility of observing a linearly growing radiation emission from such defects provided their eigenvalue is associated with an exceptional point that resides within the continuum part of the spectrum. Localized complex modes existing outside the band-gap regions are also reported along with their evolution dynamics.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1455
Optics (physics.optics); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)