Control of wavepacket spreading in nonlinear finite disordered lattices

In the absence of nonlinearity all normal modes (NMs) of a chain with disorder are spatially localized (Anderson localization). We study the action of nonlinearity, whose strength is ramped linearly in time. It leads to a spreading of a wavepacket due to interaction with and population of distant NMs. Eventually the nonlinearity induced frequency shifts take over, and the wavepacket becomes selftrapped. On finite chains a critical ramping speed is obtained, which separates delocalized final states from localized ones. The critical value depends on the strength of disorder and is largest when the localization length matches the system size.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR

A simple method to construct Flat Band lattices

We develop a simple and general method to construct arbitrary Flat Band lattices. We identify the basic ingredients behind zero-dispersion bands and develop a method to construct extended lattices based on a consecutive repetition of a given mini-array. The number of degenerated localized states is defined by the number of connected mini-arrays times the number of modes preserving the symmetry at a given connector site. In this way, we create one or more (depending on the lattice geometry) complete degenerated Flat Bands for quasi-one and two-dimensional systems. We probe our method by studying several examples, and discuss the effect of additional interactions like anisotropy or nonlinearity. At the end, we test our method by studying numerically a ribbon lattice using a continuous description.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure

Fano blockade by a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice

We study the transport of atoms across a localized Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-dimensional optical lattice. For atoms scattering off the condensate we predict total reflection as well as full transmission for certain parameter values on the basis of an exactly solvable model. The findings of analytical and numerical calculations are interpreted by a tunable Fano-like resonance and may lead to interesting applications for blocking and filtering atom beams.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures (fig4 was resized for arXiv

Mobility of high-power solitons in saturable nonlinear photonic lattices

We theoretically study the properties of one-dimensional nonlinear saturable photonic lattices exhibiting multiple mobility windows for stationary solutions. The effective energy barrier decreases to a minimum in those power regions where a new intermediate stationary solution appears. As an application, we investigate the dynamics of high-power gaussian-like beams finding several regions where the light transport is enhanced.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Optics Letter

Mobility of solitons in one-dimensional lattices with the cubic-quintic nonlinearity

We investigate mobility regimes for localized modes in the discrete nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger (DNLS) equation with the cubic-quintic onsite terms. Using the variational approximation (VA), the largest soliton's total power admitting progressive motion of kicked discrete solitons is predicted, by comparing the effective kinetic energy with the respective Peierls-Nabarro (PN) potential barrier. The prediction is novel for the DNLS model with the cubic-only nonlinearity too, demonstrating a reasonable agreement with numerical findings. Small self-focusing quintic term quickly suppresses the mobility. In the case of the competition between the cubic self-focusing and quintic self-defocusing terms, we identify parameter regions where odd and even fundamental modes exchange their stability, involving intermediate asymmetric modes. In this case, stable solitons can be set in motion by kicking, so as to let them pass the PN barrier. Unstable solitons spontaneously start oscillatory or progressive motion, if they are located, respectively, below or above a mobility threshold. Collisions between moving discrete solitons, at the competing nonlinearities frame, are studied too.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figure

Strong asymmetry for surface modes in nonlinear lattices with long-range coupling

We analyze the formation of localized surface modes on a nonlinear cubic waveguide array in the presence of exponentially-decreasing long-range interactions. We find that the long-range coupling induces a strong asymmetry between the focusing and defocusing cases for the topology of the surface modes and also for the minimum power needed to generate them. In particular, for the defocusing case, there is an upper power threshold for exciting staggered modes, which depends strongly on the long-range coupling strength. The power threshold for dynamical excitation of surface modes increase (decrease) with the strength of long-range coupling for the focusing (defocusing) cases. These effects seem to be generic for discrete lattices with long-range interactions.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted for publicatio

Quantum localized states in photonic flat-band lattices

The localization of light in flat-band lattices has been recently proposed and experimentally demonstrated in several configurations, assuming a classical description of light. Here, we study the problem of light localization in the quantum regime. We focus on quasi one-dimensional and two-dimensional lattices which exhibit a perfect flat-band inside their linear spectrum. Localized quantum states are constructed as eigenstates of the interaction Hamiltonian with a vanishing eigenvalue and a well defined total photon number. These are superpositions of Fock states with probability amplitudes given by positive as well as negative square roots of multinomial coefficients. The classical picture can be recovered by considering poissonian superpositions of localized quantum states with different total photon number. We also study the separability properties of flat band quantum states and apply them to the transmission of information via multi-core fibers, where these states allow for the total passive suppression of photon crosstalk and exhibit robustness against photon losses. At the end, we propose a novel on-chip setup for the experimental preparation of localized quantum states of light for any number of photons.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Compactification tuning for nonlinear localized modes in sawtooth lattices

We discuss the properties of nonlinear localized modes in sawtooth lattices, in the framework of a discrete nonlinear Schrödinger model with general on-site nonlinearity. Analytic conditions for existence of exact compact three-site solutions are obtained, and explicitly illustrated for the cases of power-law (cubic) and saturable nonlinearities. These nonlinear compact modes appear as continuations of linear compact modes belonging to a flat dispersion band. While for the linear system a compact mode exists only for one specific ratio of the two different coupling constants, nonlinearity may lead to compactification of otherwise noncompact localized modes for a range of coupling ratios, at some specific power. For saturable lattices, the compactification power can be tuned by also varying the nonlinear parameter. Introducing different on-site energies and anisotropic couplings yields further possibilities for compactness tuning. The properties of strongly localized modes are investigated numerically for cubic and saturable nonlinearities, and in particular their stability over large parameter regimes is shown. Since the linear flat band is isolated, its compact modes may be continued into compact nonlinear modes both for focusing and defocusing nonlinearities. Results are discussed in relation to recent realizations of sawtooth photonic lattices.The research has been performed with support from the Swedish Research Council within the Swedish Research Links program, 348-2013-6752. U.N. appreciates the Spanish government projects FIS 2011-25167 and FPDI-2013-18422 as well as the Aragon project (Grupo FENOL). R.A.V. acknowledges support from Programa ICM grant RC130001, Programa de Financiamiento Basal de CONICYT (FB0824/2008), and FONDECYT Grant No. 1151444.Peer Reviewe