Topological suppression of optical tunneling in a twisted annular fiber

Abstract

A classical wave-optics analog of topological Aharonov-Bohm suppression of tunneling in a double-well potential on a ring threaded by a magnetic flux is proposed. The optical system consists of a uniformly twisted optical fiber with a structured annular core, in which the fiber twist mimics the role of the magnetic flux in the corresponding quantum-mechanical problem. Light waves trapped in the annular core of the fiber experience an additional topological Aharonov-Bohm phase, which may lead to the destruction of optical tunneling at certain values of the twist rate

Quantum‐optical analogies using photonic structures

“…The first class of optical analogues relates to some general issues of quantum mechanics and quantum information and include, among others, Aharonov-Bohm and Berry phase [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], coherent control of quantum tunneling [36][37][38][39][40][41], localization in the kicked quantum rotator problem [42,43], control of quantum mechanical decay and Zeno dynamics [44][45][46][47], wave mechanics in non-Hermitian quantum systems with parity-time symmetry [48], quantum collapses and revivals [49,50], spin Hall effect [51,52], and classical simulators of quantum entanglement, quantum teleportation and quantum random walks [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60].…”

“…In this case, a transformation of the reference frame (from the laboratory frame to the waveguide one) introduces two additional (inertial) forces, the centrifugal force (analogous to an electric force of an inverted quadratic potential) and the Coriolis force (analogous to the magnetic Lorentz force in a uniform magnetic field). Light propagation in twisted structures, such as in twisted arrays of waveguides or in twisted annular-core fibers, has been proposed to observe the optical analogues of quantum effects where magnetic field interactions are of relevance [40,71,128], however these phenomena will not be discussed in this review.…”

“…One should mention, among others, coherent suppression or enhancement of quantum tunneling [36,[38][39][40][41], laser-induced barrier transparency [37], kicked quantum rotator dynamics [42,43], control of quantum mechanical decay and Zeno dynamics [45][46][47], wave mechanics in non-Hermitian quantum systems with parity-time symmetry [48], quantum collapses and revivals of wave packets due to quantum interference [49,50], and spin Hall effect [51,52]. In this section we just discuss in some details the optical analogues of coherent destruction of tunneling and of quantum mechanical decay control via frequent observations.…”

Quantum-mechanical analogy and supersymmetry of electromagnetic wave modes in planar waveguides

“…Vice versa, the propagation of light in waveguides can be used for experimental verification of many quantum-mechanical effects, such as quantum tunneling and time of tunneling, Bloch oscillations in periodic structures, quantum chaos. The reviews on this subject can be found in [5][6][7][8]. Note also recent papers [9,10], where the quantum-mechanical analogy was used for investigation of light confinement in waveguide structures and in microtube bottle resonators, respectively.…”

Control of the symmetry breaking in double-well potentials by the resonant nonlinearity management

“…3-5 From the theoretical viewpoint, the emergence of such structures can be understood in the framework of the wellestablished mean-field approximation, based on the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. A related work was done in nonlinear optics, where twin-core self-guided laser beams in Kerr media, 31 optically induced dual-core waveguiding structures in photorefractive crystals, 32 and trapped light beams in an annular core of an optical fiber, 33 among others, also lead to manifestations of phenomenology associated with DWPs. 6-8 and 9-17, respectively.…”