The fractional nonlinear $${\mathcal{PT}}$$ PT dimer

Abstract

Abstract We examine a fractional discrete nonlinear Schrodinger dimer, where the usual first-order derivative in the time evolution is replaced by a non integer-order derivative. The dimer is nonlinear (Kerr) and $${\mathcal{{PT}}}$$ PT -symmetric, and for localized initial conditions we examine the exchange dynamics between both sites. By means of the Laplace transformation technique, the linear $${{\mathcal{{PT}}}}$$ PT dimer is solved in closed form in terms of Mittag–Leffler functions, while for the nonlinear regime, we resort to numerical computations using the direct explicit Grunwald algorithm. In general, we see that the main effect of the fractional derivative is to produce a monotonically decreasing time envelope for the amplitude of the oscillatory exchange. In the presence of $${\mathcal{{PT}}}$$ PT symmetry, the oscillations experience some amplification for gain/loss values below some threshold, while beyond threshold, the amplitudes of both sites grow unbounded. The presence of nonlinearity can arrest the unbounded growth and lead to a selftrapped state. The trapped fraction decreases as the nonlinearity is increased past a critical value, in marked contrast with the standard (non-fractional) case.