1
|
Camacho-Guardian A, Bastarrachea-Magnani MA, Bruun GM. Mediated Interactions and Photon Bound States in an Exciton-Polariton Mixture. PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2021; 126:017401. [PMID: 33480782 DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.126.017401] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2020] [Revised: 05/13/2020] [Accepted: 12/08/2020] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
The quest to realize strongly interacting photons remains an outstanding challenge both for fundamental science and for applications. Here, we explore mediated photon-photon interactions in a highly imbalanced two-component mixture of exciton polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity. Using a theory that takes into account nonperturbative correlations between the excitons as well as strong light-matter coupling, we demonstrate the high tunability of an effective interaction between quasiparticles formed by minority component polaritons interacting with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of a majority component polaritons. In particular, the interaction, which is mediated by sound modes in the BEC can be made strong enough to support a bound state of two quasiparticles. Since these quasiparticles consist partly of photons, this in turn corresponds to a dimer state of photons propagating through the BEC. This gives rise to a new light transmission line where the dimer wave function is directly mapped onto correlations between the photons. Our findings open new routes for highly nonlinear optical materials and novel hybrid light-matter quantum systems.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- A Camacho-Guardian
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
| | | | - G M Bruun
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
- Shenzhen Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering and Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Autti S, Ahlstrom SL, Haley RP, Jennings A, Pickett GR, Poole M, Schanen R, Soldatov AA, Tsepelin V, Vonka J, Wilcox T, Woods AJ, Zmeev DE. Fundamental dissipation due to bound fermions in the zero-temperature limit. Nat Commun 2020; 11:4742. [PMID: 32958764 PMCID: PMC7506006 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18499-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2020] [Accepted: 08/26/2020] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The ground state of a fermionic condensate is well protected against perturbations in the presence of an isotropic gap. Regions of gap suppression, surfaces and vortex cores which host Andreev-bound states, seemingly lift that strict protection. Here we show that in superfluid 3He the role of bound states is more subtle: when a macroscopic object moves in the superfluid at velocities exceeding the Landau critical velocity, little to no bulk pair breaking takes place, while the damping observed originates from the bound states covering the moving object. We identify two separate timescales that govern the bound state dynamics, one of them much longer than theoretically anticipated, and show that the bound states do not interact with bulk excitations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- S Autti
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK.
| | - S L Ahlstrom
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| | - R P Haley
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| | - A Jennings
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| | - G R Pickett
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| | - M Poole
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| | - R Schanen
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| | - A A Soldatov
- P.L. Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems of RAS, Moscow, 119334, Russia
| | - V Tsepelin
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| | - J Vonka
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
- Paul Scherrer Institute, Forschungsstrasse 111, 5232, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
| | - T Wilcox
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| | - A J Woods
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
- Department of Physics and NHMFL High B/T Facility, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA
| | - D E Zmeev
- Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, UK
| |
Collapse
|