Symmetry breaking and restoring wave transmission in diode-antidiode double chains

TL;DR

This paper investigates how symmetry breaking and restoration affect wave transmission in coupled nonlinear chains with diode-like properties, revealing conditions under which transmission becomes unidirectional or bidirectional.

Contribution

It introduces a novel system of coupled DNLS chains with diode-antidiode configurations, analyzing symmetry effects and transmission behavior under varying coupling strengths.

Findings

Weak coupling leads to symmetry breaking with diode-like unidirectional transmission.

Moderate to strong coupling restores symmetry, enabling bidirectional transmission.

Oscillatory transmission dependence observed in ladder configuration.

Abstract

We introduce a system of two parallel-coupled discrete nonlinear Schroedinger (DNLS) inhomogeneous chains. Each one favors the unidirectional transmission of incident packets, in the opposite directions with respect to each other. Two different configurations of the diode-antidiode pair are considered, a ladder and a plaquette. They feature, respectively, the uniform transverse linear coupling, or the coupling limited to the central nonlinear segment of the system. In the case of weak linear coupling, the symmetry breaking is observed (i.e., the pair still features the diode behavior), while the moderately strong coupling restores the symmetry, making the transmission effectively bidirectional. In the case of the ladder, an oscillatory dependence of the transmission on the strength of the coupling is observed and qualitatively explained.