Justin T. Cole

Spiral wave solutions are found in linear and weakly nonlinear irrotational water wave equations. These unsteady spiral waves evolve from suitable initial conditions; they are not induced by external forcing. In the linear case, a long-time asymptotic result is obtained via the method of stationary phase. The asymptotic approximation is found to be in good agreement with the exact solution and reveals hyperbolic spiral structure. Numerical simulations show that these spiral waves persist in the presence of weak nonlinearity. While spiral solutions are frequently found in excitable media governed by reaction-diffusion systems, they comprise a new class of interesting two space one time dimensional solutions in fundamental linear and nonlinear dispersive wave systems.

The standard understanding of topological protection from band theory is that a system's topology cannot change without first closing the bulk band gap. However, in Floquet systems, this typical definition of topological protection is one step removed from the experimentally accessible system parameters, as the relationship between the disorder in a system's instantaneous Hamiltonian and its Floquet Hamiltonian that defines its topology is not straightforward. Here, we demonstrate that the spectral localizer framework for classifying material topology can be applied to Floquet systems and prove that its associated measure of topological protection can be understood in terms of the integrated disorder across the system's instantaneous Hamiltonians. As such, we have derived a quantitative bound on a Floquet system's topological protection in terms of the instantaneous system. Moreover, we show the utility of these bounds in both ordinary an anomalous Floquet Chern insulators.

The question of collapse (blow-up) in finite time is investigated for the two-dimensional (non-integrable) space-time nonlocal nonlinear Schrodinger equations. Starting from the two-dimensional extension of the well known AKNS q,r system, three different cases are considered: (i) partial and full parity-time (PT) symmetric, (ii) reverse-time (RT) symmetric, and (iii) general q,r system. Through extensive numerical experiments, it is shown that collapse of Gaussian initial conditions depends on the value of its quasi-power. The collapse dynamics (or lack thereof) strongly depends on whether the nonlocality is in space or time. A so-called quasi-variance identity is derived and its relationship to blow-up is discussed. Numerical simulations reveal that this quantity reaching zero in finite time does not (in general) guarantee collapse. An alternative approach to the study of wave collapse is presented via the study of transverse instability of line soliton solutions. In particular, the linear stability problem for perturbed solitons is formulated for the nonlocal RT and PT symmetric nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equations. Through a combination of numerical and analytical approaches, the stability spectrum for some stationary one soliton solutions is found. Direct numerical simulations agree with the linear stability analysis which predicts filamentation and subsequent blow-up.

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the study of wave propagation in nonlinear photonic lattices. The interplay between nonlinearity and periodicity has led researchers to manipulate light and discover new and interesting phenomena such as new classes of localized modes, usually referred to as solitons, and novel surface states that propagate robustly. A field where both nonlinearity and periodicity arises naturally is nonlinear optics. But there are other areas where waves propagating on background lattices play an important role, including photonic crystal fibers and Bose-Einstein condensation. In this review article the propagation of wave envelopes in one and two-dimensional periodic lattices associated with additional potential in the nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equation, termed lattice NLS equations, are studied. A discrete reduction, known as the tight-binding approximation, is employed to find the linear dispersion relation and the equations governing nonlinear discrete envelopes for two-dimensional simple periodic lattices and two-dimensional non-simple honeycomb lattices. In the limit under which the envelopes vary slowly, continuous envelope equations are derived from the discrete system. The coefficients of the linear evolution system are related to the dispersion relation in both the discrete and continuous cases. For simple lattices, the continuous systems are NLS type equations. In honeycomb lattices, in certain cases, the continuous system is found to be nonlinear Dirac equations. Finally, it is possible to realize so-called topological insulator systems in an optical waveguide setting. The modes supported by these systems are associated with spectral topological invariants and, remarkably, can propagate without backscatter from lattice defects.