Anomalous transport in periodic photonic chains with designed loss

Abstract: Here we show that a coherent random walk in a perfectly periodic chain of bosonic modes with designed loss can exhibit a variety of different anomalous transfer regimes in dependence on the initial state of the chain. In particular, for any given finite initial time-interval there is a set of initial states leading to a hyperballistic transport regime. Also, there are initial states allowing one to achieve a subdiffusive regime or even localization for a given time-interval, or change an asymptotic long-time diffusion rate. We show how these anomalous transport regimes can be practically realized in a laser-written network of single-mode waveguides in balk glass or how a planar system of coupled single-mode waveguides can be realized with an integrated photonic platform.