title: Observation of asymmetric transport in structures with active nonlinearities.
abstract: A mechanism for asymmetric transport which is based on parity-time-symmetric nonlinearities is presented. We show that in contrast to the case of conservative nonlinearities, an increase of the complementary conductance strength leads to a simultaneous increase of asymmetry and transmittance intensity. We experimentally demonstrate the phenomenon using a pair of coupled Van der Pol oscillators as a reference system, each with complementary anharmonic gain and loss conductances, connected to transmission lines. An equivalent optical setup is also proposed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bender
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Factor
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA and Electroscience Laboratory, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43212, USA.
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Bodyfelt
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ramezani
authors.affiliation: College of Optics & Photonics-CREOL, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA.
authors.forename: D N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Christodoulides
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA.
authors.forename: F M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Ellis
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut 06459, USA.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kottos