Effects of parity-time symmetry in nonlinear Klein-Gordon models and their stationary kinks

Kink-inhomogeneity interaction in the sine-Gordon model

In the present study the interaction of a sine-Gordon kink with a localized inhomogeneity is considered. In the absence of dissipation, the inhomogeneity considered is found to impose a potential energy barrier. The motion of the kink for near-critical values of velocities separating transmission from barrier reflection is studied. Moreover, the existence and stability properties of the kink at the relevant saddle point are examined and its dynamics is found to be accurately captured by effective low-dimensional models. In the case where there is dissipation in the system, below the threshold value of the current, a stable kink is found to exist in the immediate vicinity of the barrier. The effective particle motion of the kink is investigated obtaining very good agreement with the result of the original field model. Both one and two degree-of-freedom settings are examined with the latter being more efficient than the former in capturing the details of the kink motion.

Interaction of sine-Gordon kinks and breathers with a parity-time-symmetric defect

The scattering of kinks and low-frequency breathers of the nonlinear sine-Gordon (SG) equation on a spatially localized parity-time-symmetric perturbation (defect) with a balanced gain and loss is investigated numerically. It is demonstrated that if a kink passes the defect, it always restores its initial momentum and energy, and the only effect of the interaction with the defect is a phase shift of the kink. A kink approaching the defect from the gain side always passes, while in the opposite case it must have sufficiently large initial momentum to pass through the defect instead of being trapped in the loss region. The kink phase shift and critical velocity are calculated by means of the collective variable method. Kink-kink (kink-antikink) collisions at the defect are also briefly considered, showing how their pairwise repulsive (respectively, attractive) interaction can modify the collisional outcome of a single kink within the pair with the defect. For the breather, the result of its interaction with the defect depends strongly on the breather parameters (velocity, frequency, and initial phase) and on the defect parameters. The breather can gain some energy from the defect and as a result potentially even split into a kink-antikink pair, or it can lose a part of its energy. Interestingly, the breather translational mode is very weakly affected by the dissipative perturbation, so that a breather penetrates more easily through the defect when it comes from the lossy side, than a kink. In all studied soliton-defect interactions, the energy loss to radiation of small-amplitude extended waves is negligible.