Asymmetric soliton mobility in competing linear-nonlinear parity-time-symmetric lattices

Abstract

We address the transverse mobility of spatial solitons in competing parity-time-symmetric linear and nonlinear lattices. The competition between out-of-phase linear and nonlinear lattices results in a drastic mobility enhancement within a range of soliton energies. We show that within such a range, the addition of even a small imaginary part in the linear potential makes soliton mobility strongly asymmetric. For a given initial phase tilt, the velocity of soliton motion grows with an increase of the balanced gain/losses. In this regime of enhanced mobility, tilted solitons can efficiently drag other solitons that were initially at rest to form moving soliton pairs.