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Observation of PT-symmetry breaking in complex optical potentials
A Guo1, G J Salamo, D Duchesne
1Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701, USA.
Abstract:
In 1998, Bender and Boettcher found that a wide class of Hamiltonians, even though non-Hermitian, can still exhibit entirely real spectra provided that they obey parity-time requirements or PT symmetry. Here we demonstrate experimentally passive PT-symmetry breaking within the realm of optics. This phase transition leads to a loss induced optical transparency in specially designed pseudo-Hermitian guiding potentials.
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