Title

Optical diametric drive acceleration through action-reaction symmetry breaking

Authors

Authors

M. Wimmer; A. Regensburger; C. Bersch; M. A. Miri; S. Batz; G. Onishchukov; D. N. Christodoulides;U. Peschel

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Nat. Phys.

Keywords

PHOTONIC-CRYSTAL FIBERS; AIRY BEAMS; DYNAMICS; SOLITONS; LATTICES; GENERATION; HORIZON; Physics, Multidisciplinary

Abstract

Newton's third law of motion is one of the pillars of classical physics. This fundamental principle states that the forces two bodies exert on each other are equal and opposite. Had the resulting accelerations been oriented in the same direction, this would have instead led to a counterintuitive phenomenon, that of diametric drive(1). In such a hypothetical arrangement, two interacting particles constantly accelerate each other in the same direction through a violation of the action-reaction symmetry. Although in classical mechanics any realization of this process requires one of the two particles to have a negative mass and hence is strictly forbidden, it could nevertheless be feasible in periodic structures where the effective mass can also attain a negative sign(2-7). Here we report the first experimental observation of such diametric drive acceleration for pulses propagating in a nonlinear optical mesh lattice(8-14). The demonstrated reversal of action-reaction symmetry could enable altogether new possibilities for frequency conversion and pulse-steering applications.

Journal Title

Nature Physics

Volume

9

Issue/Number

12

Publication Date

1-1-2013

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

780

Last Page

784

WOS Identifier

WOS:000327944600015

ISSN

1745-2473

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