Holographic duality in nonlinear hyperbolic metamaterials

Abstract

According to the holographic principle, the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on its boundary. Holographic principle establishes equivalence, or duality, between theoretical description of volume physics, which involves gravity, and the gravity-free field theory, which describes physics on its surface. While generally accepted as a theoretical framework, so far there was no known experimental system which would exhibit explicit holographic duality and be amenable to direct experimental testing. Here we demonstrate that nonlinear optics of hyperbolic metamaterials admits such a dual holographic description. Wave equation which describes propagation of extraordinary light through the volume of metamaterial exhibits 2 + 1 dimensional Lorentz symmetry. The role of time in the corresponding effective 3D Minkowski spacetime is played by the spatial coordinate aligned with the optical axis of the material. Nonlinear optical Kerr effect bends this spacetime resulting in effective gravitational interaction between extraordinary photons. On the other hand, a holographic dual theory may be formulated on the metamaterial surface, which describes its nonlinear optics via interaction of cylindrical surface plasmons possessing conserved charges proportional to their angular momenta. Potential implications of this duality for superconductivity of hyperbolic metamaterials are discussed.