Wave interactions in localizing media - a coin with many faces

TL;DR

This paper reviews various experimental realizations of wave localization in heterogeneous media and examines how nonlinear wave interactions can disrupt these localization effects.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of experimental localizing potentials and analyzes the impact of nonlinearity on wave localization.

Findings

Heterogeneous potentials can localize linear waves in experiments.

Nonlinearity from wave interactions can destroy wave localization.

The paper highlights the contrast between linear localization and nonlinear effects.

Abstract

A variety of heterogeneous potentials are capable of localizing linear non-interacting waves. In this work, we review different examples of heterogeneous localizing potentials which were realized in experiments. We then discuss the impact of nonlinearity induced by wave interactions, in particular its destructive effect on the localizing properties of the heterogeneous potentials.