Dominici, L., Petrov, M., Matuszewski, M. et al. (10 more authors) (2015) Real-space collapse of a polariton condensate. Nature Communications, 6. ARTN 8993.
Abstract
Microcavity polaritons are two-dimensional bosonic fluids with strong nonlinearities, composed of coupled photonic and electronic excitations. In their condensed form, they display quantum hydrodynamic features similar to atomic Bose–Einstein condensates, such as long-range coherence, superfluidity and quantized vorticity. Here we report the unique phenomenology that is observed when a pulse of light impacts the polariton vacuum: the fluid which is suddenly created does not splash but instead coheres into a very bright spot. The real-space collapse into a sharp peak is at odd with the repulsive interactions of polaritons and their positive mass, suggesting that an unconventional mechanism is at play. Our modelling devises a possible explanation in the self-trapping due to a local heating of the crystal lattice, that can be described as a collective polaron formed by a polariton condensate. These observations hint at the polariton fluid dynamics in conditions of extreme intensities and ultrafast times.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 The Author(s), Rights Managed by Nature Publishing Group. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | cond-mat.quant-gas; cond-mat.quant-gas; nlin.PS |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Jul 2016 15:30 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jul 2016 15:30 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9993 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/ncomms9993 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:84428 |