Vector Edge Solitons and Domain Walls in a Nonlinear Mechanical Topological Insulator

Abstract

We report nonlinear edge waves in a 2D mechanical topological insulator. A bulk lattice consists of pendulums with on-site cubic nonlinearity connected by linear springs realizing quantum spin Hall effect. We show that the nonlinear interaction between two edge modes with equal group velocities (EGV) is described by a 1D two-component coupled nonlinear Schrödinger (CNLS) equation. On the interface separating two bulk lattices with opposite spin Chern numbers, we construct linear springs such that the dispersion relation exhibits EGV points with favorable CNLS coefficients. Thus, we realize nonlinear edge waves propagating along the interface, including bright-bright (BB) edge solitons for focusing CNLS coefficients, and dark-dark edge solitons, edge domain walls, and dark-bright edge solitons for defocusing CNLS coefficients. In terms of the site amplitudes, these solutions resemble bright and dark breathers. These solutions should be topologically protected when both carrier frequencies lie within a band gap, which we explicitly show by passing BB edge solitons through compact defects on the interface. We also show energy transfer in BB edge soliton collisions with potential application to collision-based computing. Generally, vector edge solitons exhibit a large parameter space for soliton collisions, which endows mechanical devices with greater potential for information processing and other functionalities.