Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless crossover in a photonic lattice

Journal Article · Sat Jan 15 00:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.83.013806· OSTI ID:21537048

Small, Eran; Pugatch, Rami; Silberberg, Yaron ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100 (Israel)

We show that a periodic two-dimensional (2D) photonic lattice with Kerr nonlinearity exhibits a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) crossover associated with a vortex-unbinding transition. We find that averaging over random initial conditions is equivalent to Boltzmann thermal averaging with the discrete nonlinear Schro{center_dot}{center_dot}dinger Hamiltonian. By controlling the initial randomness we can continuously vary the effective temperature. Since this Hamiltonian is in the 2D XY universality class, a BKT transition ensues. We verify this prediction using experimentally accessible observables and find good agreement between theory and simulations. This opens the possibility of experimental access to interesting phase transitions known in condensed matter using nonlinear optics.

• OSTI ID: 21537048
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 83, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.83.013806; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
BOLTZMANN EQUATION
CRYSTAL LATTICES
HAMILTONIANS
NONLINEAR OPTICS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PHOTONS
RANDOMNESS
SIMULATION
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
VORTICES
BOSONS
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
EQUATIONS
INTEGRO-DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
KINETIC EQUATIONS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
MATHEMATICAL OPERATORS
OPTICS
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
QUANTUM OPERATORS