Particle correlations and evidence for dark state condensation in a cold dipolar exciton fluid


  Yehiel Shilo[1]  ,  Kobi Cohen[1]  ,  Boris Laikhtman[1]  ,  Ronen Rapaport[1][2]  ,  Ken West[3]  ,  Loren Pfeiffer[3]  
[1] Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
[2] Applied Physics Department, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
[3] Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

Dipolar molecular fluids are very important and abundant in nature, and yet their complex collective microscopic ordering and correlations are still not well understood. Cold two-dimensional dipolar fluids are predicted to display a very rich phase diagram in both the classical and quantum regimes, far beyond the well studied weakly interacting gases, and are currently a major thrust in modern cold atoms and molecules research.

I will show an experimental evidence of two correlation regimes of a cold dipolar exciton fluid, created optically in a semiconductor bilayer heterostructure. In the higher temperature regime, the average interaction energy between the particles shows a surprising temperature dependence which is an evidence for correlations beyond the mean field model. At a lower temperature, there is a sharp increase in the interaction energy of optically active excitons, accompanied by a strong reduction in their apparent population. This is an evidence for a sharp macroscopic transition to a dark state as was suggested theoretically.