Spontaneous isotropy breaking for vortices in nonlinear left-handed metamaterials

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Main Authors: Kukolj, Trivko, Čubrović, Mihailo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2018
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author Kukolj, Trivko
Čubrović, Mihailo
author_facet Kukolj, Trivko
Čubrović, Mihailo
contents We explore numerically and analytically the pattern formation and symmetry breaking of beams propagating through left-handed (negative) nonlinear metamaterials. When the input beam is a vortex with topological charge (winding number) $Q$, the initially circular (isotropic) beam acquires the symmetry of a polygon with $Q$, $2Q$ or $3Q$ sides, depending on the details of the response functions of the material. Within an effective field-theory model, this phenomenon turns out to be a case of spontaneous dynamical symmetry breaking described by a Landau-Ginzburg functional. Complex nonlinear dependence of the magnetic permittivity on the magnetic field of the beam plays a central role, as it introduces branch cuts in the mean-field solution, and permutations among different branches give rise to discrete symmetries of the patterns. By considering loop corrections in the effective Landau-Ginzburg field theory we obtain reasonably accurate predictions of the numerical results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1812_08805
institution arXiv
publishDate 2018
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spontaneous isotropy breaking for vortices in nonlinear left-handed metamaterials
Kukolj, Trivko
Čubrović, Mihailo
Optics
Other Condensed Matter
Quantum Physics
We explore numerically and analytically the pattern formation and symmetry breaking of beams propagating through left-handed (negative) nonlinear metamaterials. When the input beam is a vortex with topological charge (winding number) $Q$, the initially circular (isotropic) beam acquires the symmetry of a polygon with $Q$, $2Q$ or $3Q$ sides, depending on the details of the response functions of the material. Within an effective field-theory model, this phenomenon turns out to be a case of spontaneous dynamical symmetry breaking described by a Landau-Ginzburg functional. Complex nonlinear dependence of the magnetic permittivity on the magnetic field of the beam plays a central role, as it introduces branch cuts in the mean-field solution, and permutations among different branches give rise to discrete symmetries of the patterns. By considering loop corrections in the effective Landau-Ginzburg field theory we obtain reasonably accurate predictions of the numerical results.
title Spontaneous isotropy breaking for vortices in nonlinear left-handed metamaterials
topic Optics
Other Condensed Matter
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.08805