Longhi Stefano
Opt Lett. 2024 Sep 15;49(18):5188-5191. doi: 10.1364/OL.532503.
The Mpemba effect (ME) is the counterintuitive phenomenon in statistical physics for which a far-from-equilibrium state can relax toward equilibrium faster than a state closer to equilibrium. This effect has raised great curiosity for a long time and has been studied extensively in many classical and quantum systems. Here, it is shown that the Mpemba effect can be observed in optics as well. Specifically, the process of light diffusion in finite-sized photonic lattices under incoherent (dephasing) dynamics is considered. Rather surprisingly, it is shown that certain highly localized initial light distributions can diffuse faster than initial broadly delocalized distributions. The effect is illustrated by considering the random walk of optical pulses in fiber-based temporal mesh lattices, which should provide an experimentally accessible setup for the demonstration of the Mpemba effect in optics.
姆潘巴效应（ME）是统计物理学中一种违反直觉的现象，即一个远离平衡态的状态可以比更接近平衡态的状态更快地弛豫到平衡态。长期以来，这种效应引发了人们极大的好奇心，并在许多经典和量子系统中得到了广泛研究。在此表明，姆潘巴效应在光学中也能被观察到。具体而言，考虑了非相干（退相）动力学下有限尺寸光子晶格中的光扩散过程。相当令人惊讶的是，结果表明某些高度局域化的初始光分布比初始广泛非局域化的分布扩散得更快。通过考虑基于光纤的时间网格晶格中光脉冲的随机游走来说明这种效应，这应该为在光学中演示姆潘巴效应提供一个实验上可实现的装置。
