Asymmetric wave propagation in nonlinear systems

A mechanism for asymmetric (nonreciprocal) wave transmission is presented. As a reference system, we consider a layered nonlinear, nonmirror-symmetric model described by the one-dimensional discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation with spatially varying coefficients embedded in an otherwise linear lattice. We construct a class of exact extended solutions such that waves with the same frequency and incident amplitude impinging from left and right directions have very different transmission coefficients. This effect arises already for the simplest case of two nonlinear layers and is associated with the shift of nonlinear resonances. Increasing the number of layers considerably increases the complexity of the family of solutions. Finally, numerical simulations of asymmetric wave packet transmission are presented which beautifully display the rectifying effect.