Edge states of photon pairs in cavity arrays with spatially modulated nonlinearity

Abstract

We study theoretically an extended Bose-Hubbard model with the spatially modulated interaction strength, describing a one-dimensional array of tunneling-coupled nonlinear cavities. It is demonstrated that the spatial modulation of the nonlinearity induces bound two-photon edge states. The formation of these edge states has been understood analytically in terms of nonlinear self-localization. Our results show that the number of excitations and the modulation period of the interaction affect the photonic quantum walks in the universal way and both promote the edge states.