Deterministic time rewinding of waves in time-varying media

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robust method for fully restoring waves to their original state in time-varying media through engineered temporal modulations, enabling advanced control over wave dynamics beyond existing techniques.

Contribution

It presents a novel, deterministic approach for complete wave time-rewinding in electromagnetic and Dirac systems, surpassing partial recovery methods like time-reversal holography.

Findings

Achieves complete wave reconstruction including amplitude and phase.

Demonstrates robustness against modulation complexity and asymmetry.

Provides analytical conditions validated by simulations.

Abstract

Temporal modulation of material parameters offers unprecedented control over wave dynamics, enabling phenomena beyond the capabilities of static systems. Here we introduce and analyze a robust mechanism for time rewinding, whereby a temporally evolved wave is fully restored to its original state through a carefully engineered sequence of temporal modulations. In electromagnetic systems, time rewinding emerges from impedance-matched or anti-matched hierarchical bilayer structures with matched modulation durations, exploiting total transmission or reflection and reversed phase accumulation. In Dirac systems, it arises via complete interband transition driven by time-dependent vector potentials. Unlike time-reversal holography or quantum time mirrors, which produce wave echoes but only partial waveform recovery, our approach achieves deterministic and complete reconstruction of the entire wave state, including both amplitude and phase. Analytical conditions for robust amplitude and phase restoration are derived and validated through simulations of discrete and continuous modulations, demonstrating resilience to modulation complexity and temporal asymmetry. These findings establish a versatile platform for secure information retrieval, temporal cloaking, programmable metamaterials, and wave-based logic devices.