No Arabic abstract
Semiconductor microcavity polaritons in the optical parametric scattering regime have been recently demonstrated to display a new variety of dissipationless superfluid behaviour. We report the first observation in resonantly pumped exciton polaritons of a metastable persistent superflow carrying quantum of angular momentum, m. The quantised vortex, excited by a weak 2 ps pulsed probe, is shown to last for at least 80 ps, limited only by the leaking outside the cavity. The polariton circulating superfluid persists in the absence of the driving rotating probe with no apparent dissipation. In addition, for a moving superfluid, we show the coherent splitting of a quantised double vortex, with charge m=2, into two singly quantised vortices of m=1. Remarkably, we observe the m=2 vortex to be stable when they are at rest. The experimental results are compared with a theoretical analysis, obtained describing the triggered parametric scattering regime of polaritons via a two-component Gross-Pitaevskii equation, including pump and decay processes.
One of the most striking quantum effects in a low temperature interacting Bose gas is superfluidity. First observed in liquid 4He, this phenomenon has been intensively studied in a variety of systems for its amazing features such as the persistence of superflows and the quantization of the angular momentum of vortices. The achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in dilute atomic gases provided an exceptional opportunity to observe and study superfluidity in an extremely clean and controlled environment. In the solid state, Bose-Einstein condensation of exciton polaritons has now been reported several times. Polaritons are strongly interacting light-matter quasi-particles, naturally occurring in semiconductor microcavities in the strong coupling regime and constitute a very interesting example of composite bosons. Even though pioneering experiments have recently addressed the propagation of a fluid of coherent polaritons, still no conclusive evidence is yet available of its superfluid nature. In the present Letter, we report the observation of spontaneous formation of pinned quantised vortices in the Bose-condensed phase of a polariton fluid by means of phase and amplitude imaging. Theoretical insight into the possible origin of such vortices is presented in terms of a generalised Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The implications of our observations concerning the superfluid nature of the non-equilibrium polariton fluid are finally discussed.
We study the properties of propagating polariton wave-packets and their connection to the stability of doubly charged vortices. Wave-packet propagation and related photoluminescence spectra exhibit a rich behaviour dependent on the excitation regime. We show that, because of the non-quadratic polariton dispersion, doubly charged vortices are stable only when initiated in wave-packets propagating at small velocities. Vortices propagating at larger velocities, or those imprinted directly into the polariton optical parametric oscillator (OPO) signal and idler are always unstable to splitting.
We present a theoretical study of the hydrodynamic properties of a quantum gas of exciton-polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity under a resonant laser excitation. The effect of a spatially extended defect on the superfluid flow is investigated as a function of the flow speed. The processes that are responsible for the nucleation of vortices and solitons in the wake of the defect are characterized, as well as the regimes where the superfluid flow remains unperturbed. Specific features due to the non-equilibrium nature of the polariton fluid are put in evidence.
We revisit here the Kibble-Zurek mechanism for superfluid bosons slowly driven across the transition towards the Mott-insulating phase. By means of a combination of the Time-Dependent Variational Principle and a Tree-Tensor Network, we characterize the current flowing during annealing in a ring-shaped one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model with artificial classical gauge field on up to 32 lattice sites. We find that the superfluid current shows, after an initial decrease, persistent oscillations which survive even when the system is well inside the Mott insulating phase. We demonstrate that the amplitude of such oscillations is connected to the residual energy, characterizing the creation of defects while crossing the quantum critical point, while their frequency matches the spectral gap in the Mott insulating phase. Our predictions can be verified in future atomtronics experiments with neutral atoms in ring shaped traps. We believe that the proposed setup provides an interesting but simple platform to study the non-equilibrium quantum dynamics of persistent currents experimentally.
We report the formation of a ring-shaped array of vortices after injection of angular momentum in a polariton superfluid. The angular momentum is injected by a $ell= 8$ Laguerre-Gauss beam, whereas the global rotation of the fluid is hindered by a narrow Gaussian beam placed at its center. In the linear regime a spiral interference pattern containing phase defects is visible. In the nonlinear (superfluid) regime, the interference disappears and the vortices nucleate as a consequence of the angular momentum quantization. The radial position of the vortices evolves freely in the region between the two pumps as a function of the density. Hydrodynamic instabilities resulting in the spontaneous nucleation of vortex-antivortex pairs when the system size is sufficiently large confirm that the vortices are not constrained by interference when nonlinearities dominate the system.