Compactons and bistability in exciton-polariton condensates

Abstract

We address stationary patterns in exciton-polariton condensates supported by a narrow external pump beam, and we discover that even in the absence of trapping potentials, such condensates may support stable localized stationary dissipative solutions (quasicompactons), whose field decays faster than exponentially or even vanishes everywhere outside the pump spot. More general conditions lead to dissipative solitons which may display bistability. The bistability in exciton-polariton condensates, which manifests itself in the simultaneous existence of two stable and one unstable localized solitons with different amplitudes, widths, and exciton-photon fractions under the same physical conditions, strongly depends on the width of the pump beam and is found to disappear for sufficiently narrow pump beams.

Parity bifurcations in trapped multistable phase locked exciton-polariton condensates

“…Recently, ultrafast 14,15 , ultralow energy 16 , and nonlinear relaxation 17 switching mechanisms were realized experimentally between bistable states of polariton ensembles and suggest their future application as optical memory elements. Bistability is also a precursor for a number of effects in exciton-polariton systems, including: the formation of solitons [18][19][20] ; imprinting patterns and spatial images [21][22][23][24] ; screening disorder 25 ; sustaining superfluid propagation 26 ; realizing quasi-compactons 27 ; simulating cellular automata 28 ; realizing emergent descriptions of (classical) Ising models 29 ; and realizing polaritonic circuits 30 .…”

Multidimensional discrete compactons in nonlinear Schrödinger lattices with strong nonlinearity management

“…The difficulty of implementing this condition in physical contexts has largely restricted the investigations mainly to the mathematical side, although this situation is now rapidly evolving. Besides Bose-Einstein condensates under SNLM, physical compactons were suggested to appear also in exciton-polariton condensates [12] and nearly-compact (doubly exponential) traveling waves have also been identified in the realm of granular crystals bearing purely nonlinear interactions [13]. Finally, another area of significant interest has recently arisen where special solutions in the form of discrete compactons may emerge.…”

Exciting Polaritons with Quantum Light

“…This is not the only advantage that powers Mollow spectroscopy. A strong pumping of polaritons leads to several complications that hinder full or compelling information, such as heating, phase-space filling [43], loss of strong coupling [44], population of an exciton reservoir contributing the bulk of the blueshift [45,46], exciton-photon fraction deviating from the Hopfield coefficients [47], etc. Since polariton interactions provide the foundation for nonlinear effects that constitute much of the polariton literature, the question of their nature and magnitude could be regarded as one of the most important open problems of the field [48][49][50].…”