Symmetry breaking of light on a Möbius strip

An international team of scientists from New Zealand, Belgium, France and Strathclyde has devised and realised a totally new laser device where symmetry and symmetry breaking are maintained for light travelling in a resonator with a twisted (Möbius) shape. Gian-Luca Oppo explains that the new device is based on laser light with orthogonal polarizations circling in an optical resonator where, at each round trip, the two polarizations are exchanged to acquire a synthetic Möbius topology. In this way the system is brought to symmetry and symmetry breaking without the need of balancing the parameters of the configuration, a dream for physicists of all disciplines and orientations. Gian-Luca Oppo says: ‘For laser light inside our resonators, it is like running blindfolded on an infinitely long tightrope, with full control of when and where to fall, if required’. These theoretical and experimental findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications in February 2024 [1]. Rigorous statistical tests confirm the robustness of the underlying symmetry protection, with long term stability provided to domain walls, solitons, and breathers for applications to frequency combs, laser random number generators, quantum technologies and even coherent Ising machines.

[1] S. Coen, B. Garbin, G. Xu, L. Quinn, N. Goldman, G.-L. Oppo, M. Erkintalo, S. G. Murdoch and J. Fatome, ‘Nonlinear topological symmetry protection in a dissipative system’, Nature Communications 15, 1398 (2024)

March 2024