Dissipative solitons and vortices in polariton superfluids

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation, stability, and properties of dissipative solitons and vortices in polariton superfluids under inhomogeneous pumping, revealing mechanisms for spatial localization and stability in these nonequilibrium quantum systems.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of dissipative solitons and vortices in polariton condensates using the open-dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii model, highlighting self-trapping effects and stability conditions.

Findings

Spatial localization occurs due to effective self-trapping from polariton flows.

Bright dissipative solitons are dynamically stable ground states.

Conditions for stable single-charge vortices are identified.

Abstract

We examine spatial localisation and dynamical stability of Bose-Einstein condensates of exciton-polaritons in microcavities under the condition of off-resonant spatially inhomogeneous optical pumping both with and without a harmonic trapping potential. We employ the open-dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii model for describing an incoherently pumped polariton condensate coupled to an exciton reservoir, and reveal that spatial localisation of the steady-state condensate occurs due to the effective self-trapping created by the polariton flows supported by the spatially inhomogeneous pump, regardless of the presence of the external potential. A ground state of the polariton condensate with repulsive interactions between the quasiparticles represents a dynamically stable bright dissipative soliton. We also investigate the conditions for sustaining spatially localised structures with non-zero angular momentum in the form of single-charge vortices.