Attractive and Repulsive Exciton-Polariton Interactions Mediated by an Electron Gas.

Realizing strong photon-photon interactions in a solid-state setting is a major goal with far reaching potential for optoelectronic applications. Using Landau's quasiparticle framework combined with a microscopic many-body theory, we explore the interactions between exciton-polaritons and trions in a two-dimensional semiconductor injected with an electron gas inside a microcavity. We show that particle-hole excitations in the electron gas mediate an attractive interaction between the polaritons, whereas the interaction between trions and polaritons mediated by the exchange of an electron can be either repulsive or attractive. These mediated interactions are intrinsic to the quasiparticles and are also present in the absence of light. Importantly, they can be tuned to be more than an order of magnitude stronger than the direct polariton-polariton interaction in the absence of the electron gas, thereby providing a promising outlook for nonlinear optical components. Finally, we compare our theoretical predictions to two recent experiments.

Charged Polarons and Molecules in a Bose-Einstein Condensate.

Ultracold hybrid ion-atom gases represent an exciting frontier for quantum simulation offering a new set of functionalities and control. Here, we study a mobile ion immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate and show that the long-range nature of the ion-atom interaction gives rise to an intricate interplay between few- and many-body physics. This leads to the existence of several polaronic and molecular states due to the binding of an increasing number of bosons to the ion, which is well beyond what can be described by a short-range pseudopotential. We use a complementary set of techniques including a variational ansatz and field theory to describe this rich physics and calculate the full spectral response of the ion. It follows from thermodynamic arguments that the ion-atom interaction leads to a mesoscopic dressing cloud of the polarons, and a simplified model demonstrates that the spectral weight of the molecules scale with increasing powers of the density. We finally calculate the quantum dynamics of the ion after a quench experiment.

Intercavity polariton slows down dynamics in strongly coupled cavities.

Band engineering stands as an efficient route to induce strongly correlated quantum many-body phenomena. Besides inspiring analogies among diverse physical fields, tuning on demand the group velocity is highly attractive in photonics because it allows unconventional flows of light. Λ-schemes offer a route to control the propagation of light in a lattice-free configurations, enabling exotic phases such as slow-light and allowing for highly optical non-linear systems. Here, we realize room-temperature intercavity Frenkel polaritons excited across two strongly coupled cavities. We demonstrate the formation of a tuneable heavy-polariton, akin to slow light, appearing in the absence of a periodic in-plane potential. Our photonic architecture based on a simple three-level scheme enables the unique spatial segregation of photons and excitons in different cavities and maintains a balanced degree of mixing between them. This unveils a dynamical competition between many-body scattering processes and the underlying polariton nature which leads to an increased fluorescence lifetime. The intercavity polariton features are further revealed under appropriate resonant pumping, where we observe suppression of the polariton fluorescence intensity.