English

Supersolid behavior of nonlinear light

Pattern Formation and Solitons 2017-07-11 v2 Other Condensed Matter Optics

Abstract

We present a formal demonstration that light can simultaneously exhibit a superfluid behavior and spatial long-range order when propagating in a photonic crystal with self-focussing nonlinearity. In this way, light presents the distinguishing features of matter in a "supersolid" phase. We show that this supersolid phase provides the stability conditions for nonlinear Bloch waves and, at the same time, permits the existence of topological solitons or defects for the envelope of these waves. We use a condensed matter analysis instead of a standard nonlinear optics approach and provide numerical evidence of these theoretical findings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0808.0998,
  title  = {Supersolid behavior of nonlinear light},
  author = {Albert Ferrando and Miguel Ángel García-March and Mario Zacarés},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0808.0998},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

The contents of this paper have been extended and completed, and part of them are now included in the new larger and more detailed paper arXiv:1707.02213

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:08:24.764Z