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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08995 |
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| _version_ | 1866908585741516800 |
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| author | Zhang, Liang Pan, Chenhao He, Jinze Chen, Danni Zhao, Zirui Cheng, Qingqing Pan, Yiming |
| author_facet | Zhang, Liang Pan, Chenhao He, Jinze Chen, Danni Zhao, Zirui Cheng, Qingqing Pan, Yiming |
| contents | Photonic time crystals (PTCs) - dielectric media whose permittivity is periodically modulated in time - map to a Dirac equation with an imaginary mass, opening a momentum gap (k-gap) where modes grow or decay exponentially. Here, we introduce a sequence of temporal Jackiw-Rebbi kinks that act as a programmable flip of the Dirac mass, exchanging the amplifying and decaying in-gap modes. By launching two seeded pulses with a controlled relative phase, we demonstrate topological pair annihilation in spacetime domain, the phase-selective cancellation of counter-propagating, k-gap-amplified modes. The resulting spatiotemporal cascade appears superluminal, yet causality is preserved because the cascaded pattern carries no net energy flux. To facilitate implementation, we construct a minimal time-varying non-Hermitian lattice model and reproduce the phase-selective pair annihilation behavior, establishing a direct continuum-lattice correspondence. Our results identify topological kinks as temporal gating to manipulate the growth and wave propagation of time-varying media. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_08995 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Topologically-protected superluminal pair annihilation in photonic time crystals Zhang, Liang Pan, Chenhao He, Jinze Chen, Danni Zhao, Zirui Cheng, Qingqing Pan, Yiming Optics Photonic time crystals (PTCs) - dielectric media whose permittivity is periodically modulated in time - map to a Dirac equation with an imaginary mass, opening a momentum gap (k-gap) where modes grow or decay exponentially. Here, we introduce a sequence of temporal Jackiw-Rebbi kinks that act as a programmable flip of the Dirac mass, exchanging the amplifying and decaying in-gap modes. By launching two seeded pulses with a controlled relative phase, we demonstrate topological pair annihilation in spacetime domain, the phase-selective cancellation of counter-propagating, k-gap-amplified modes. The resulting spatiotemporal cascade appears superluminal, yet causality is preserved because the cascaded pattern carries no net energy flux. To facilitate implementation, we construct a minimal time-varying non-Hermitian lattice model and reproduce the phase-selective pair annihilation behavior, establishing a direct continuum-lattice correspondence. Our results identify topological kinks as temporal gating to manipulate the growth and wave propagation of time-varying media. |
| title | Topologically-protected superluminal pair annihilation in photonic time crystals |
| topic | Optics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.08995 |