Quasiperiodic Envelope Solitons

We analyse nonlinear wave propagation and cascaded self-focusing due to second-harmonic generation in Fibbonacci optical superlattices and introduce a novel concept of nonlinear physics, the quasiperiodic soliton, which describes spatially localized self-trapping of a quasiperiodic wave. We point out a link between the quasiperiodic soliton and partially incoherent spatial solitary waves recently generated experimentally.Comment: Submitted to PRL. 4 pages with 5 figure

Controlling soliton refraction in optical lattices

We show in the framework of the 1D nonlinear Schrödinger equation that the value of the refraction angle of a fundamental soliton beam passing through an optical lattice can be controlled by adjusting either the shape of an individual waveguide or the relative positions of the waveguides. In the case of the shallow refractive index modulation, we develop a general approach for the calculation of the refraction angle change. The shape of a single waveguide crucially affects the refraction direction due to the appearance of a structural form factor in the expression for the density of emitted waves. For a lattice of scatterers, wave-soliton interference inside the lattice leads to the appearance of an additional geometric form factor. As a result, the soliton refraction is more pronounced for the disordered lattices than for the periodic ones

Anderson localization in metamaterials and other complex media

We review some recent (mostly ours) results on the Anderson localization of light and electron waves in complex disordered systems, including: (i) left-handed metamaterials, (ii) magneto-active optical structures, (iii) graphene superlattices, and (iv) nonlinear dielectric media. First, we demonstrate that left-handed metamaterials can significantly suppress localization of light and lead to an anomalously enhanced transmission. This suppression is essential at the long-wavelength limit in the case of normal incidence, at specific angles of oblique incidence (Brewster anomaly), and in the vicinity of the zero-epsilon or zero-mu frequencies for dispersive metamaterials. Remarkably, in disordered samples comprised of alternating normal and left-handed metamaterials, the reciprocal Lyapunov exponent and reciprocal transmittance increment can differ from each other. Second, we study magneto-active multilayered structures, which exhibit nonreciprocal localization of light depending on the direction of propagation and on the polarization. At resonant frequencies or realizations, such nonreciprocity results in effectively unidirectional transport of light. Third, we discuss the analogy between the wave propagation through multilayered samples with metamaterials and the charge transport in graphene, which enables a simple physical explanation of unusual conductive properties of disordered graphene superlatices. We predict disorder-induced resonances of the transmission coefficient at oblique incidence of the Dirac quasiparticles. Finally, we demonstrate that an interplay of nonlinearity and disorder in dielectric media can lead to bistability of individual localized states excited inside the medium at resonant frequencies. This results in nonreciprocity of the wave transmission and unidirectional transport of light.Comment: 37 pages, 30 figures, Review pape

Nonreciprocal Anderson Localization in Magneto-Optical Random Structures

We study, both analytically and numerically, disorder-induced localization of light in random layered structures with magnetooptical materials. The Anderson localization in such structures demonstrates nonreciprocal features in the averaged localization length and individual transmission resonances. We employ short-wavelength approximation where the localization effects are strong, and consider both the Faraday and Voigt magnetooptical geometries. In the Faraday geometry, the transmission is strongly nonreciprocal for the circularly polarized waves, whereas in the Voigt geometry, the nonreciprocity is much weaker, and it may appear only for the individual transmission resonances of the TM-polarized waves.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Anderson Localization of Classical Waves in Weakly Scattering Metamaterials

We study the propagation and localization of classical waves in one-dimensional disordered structures composed of alternating layers of left- and right-handed materials (mixed stacks) and compare them to the structures composed of different layers of the same material (homogeneous stacks). For weakly scattering layers, we have developed an effective analytical approach and have calculated the transmission length within a wide region of the input parameters. When both refractive index and layer thickness of a mixed stack are random, the transmission length in the long-wave range of the localized regime exhibits a quadratic power wavelength dependence with the coefficients different for mixed and homogeneous stacks. Moreover, the transmission length of a mixed stack differs from reciprocal of the Lyapunov exponent of the corresponding infinite stack. In both the ballistic regime of a mixed stack and in the near long-wave region of a homogeneous stack, the transmission length of a realization is a strongly fluctuating quantity. In the far long-wave part of the ballistic region, the homogeneous stack becomes effectively uniform and the transmission length fluctuations are weaker. The crossover region from the localization to the ballistic regime is relatively narrow for both mixed and homogeneous stacks. In mixed stacks with only refractive-index disorder, Anderson localization at long wavelengths is substantially suppressed, with the localization length growing with the wavelength much faster than for homogeneous stacks. The crossover region becomes essentially wider and transmission resonances appear only in much longer stacks. All theoretical predictions are in an excellent agreement with the results of numerical simulations.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, submitted to PR

Soliton pinning by long-range order in aperiodic systems

We investigate propagation of a kink soliton along inhomogeneous chains with two different constituents, arranged either periodically, aperiodically, or randomly. For the discrete sine-Gordon equation and the Fibonacci and Thue-Morse chains taken as examples, we have found that the phenomenology of aperiodic systems is very peculiar: On the one hand, they exhibit soliton pinning as in the random chain, although the depinning forces are clearly smaller. In addition, solitons are seen to propagate differently in the aperiodic chains than on periodic chains with large unit cells, given by approximations to the full aperiodic sequence. We show that most of these phenomena can be understood by means of simple collective coordinate arguments, with the exception of long range order effects. In the conclusion we comment on the interesting implications that our work could bring about in the field of solitons in molecular (e.g., DNA) chains.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX 3.0 + epsf, 3 figures in accompanying PostScript file (Submitted to Phys Rev E Rapid Comm

Kink propagation through disordered media

Using a collective-coordinate approach, we study kink propagation along nonlinear systems with local, randomly distributed inhomogeneities. We develop a general method to compute dynamical variable statistics which can be generalized to a number of soli ton-bearing systems, and we apply it to the sine-Gordon equation as an example.Supported by the Comision Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CICyT) of Spain through project MAT90- 0544, and S.A.G. is partially supported by a grant from the Israeli Ministry for Science and Development.Publicad

Umklapp-Assisted Electron Transport Oscillations in Metal Superlattices

We consider a superlattice of parallel metal tunnel junctions with a spatially non-homogeneous probability for electrons to tunnel. In such structures tunneling can be accompanied by electron scattering that conserves energy but not momentum. In the special case of a tunneling probability that varies periodically with period $a$ in the longitudinal direction, i.e., perpendicular to the junctions, electron tunneling is accompanied by "umklapp" scattering, where the longitudinal momentum changes by a multiple of $h/a$. We predict that as a result a sequence of metal-insulator transitions can be induced by an external electric- or magnetic field as the field strength is increased.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Interplay of disorder and nonlinearity in Klein-Gordon models: Immobile kinks

We consider Klein-Gordon models with a $\delta$-correlated spatial disorder. We show that the properties of immobile kinks exhibit strong dependence on the assumptions as to their statistical distribution over the minima of the effective random potential. Namely, there exists a crossover from monotonically increasing (when a kink occupies the deepest potential well) to the non-monotonic (at equiprobable distribution of kinks over the potential minima) dependence of the average kink width as a function of the disorder intensity. We show also that the same crossover may take place with changing size of the system.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Quantum dynamics in canonical and micro-canonical ensembles. Part I. Anderson localization of electrons

The new numerical approach for consideration of quantum dynamics and calculations of the average values of quantum operators and time correlation functions in the Wigner representation of quantum statistical mechanics has been developed. The time correlation functions have been presented in the form of the integral of the Weyl's symbol of considered operators and the Fourier transform of the product of matrix elements of the dynamic propagators. For the last function the integral Wigner- Liouville's type equation has been derived. The numerical procedure for solving this equation combining both molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods has been developed. For electrons in disordered systems of scatterers the numerical results have been obtained for series of the average values of the quantum operators including position and momentum dispersions, average energy, energy distribution function as well as for the frequency dependencies of tensor of electron conductivity and permittivity according to quantum Kubo formula. Zero or very small value of static conductivity have been considered as the manifestation of Anderson localization of electrons in 1D case. Independent evidence of Anderson localization comes from the behaviour of the calculated time dependence of position dispersion.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure