Blowup dynamics of coherently driven polariton condensates

TL;DR

This paper predicts that in 2D polariton condensates with repulsive interactions, energy can accumulate over many lifetimes under above-resonance pumping, leading to a blowup after reaching a scattering threshold, relevant for multistable systems.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical model predicting blowup dynamics in coherently driven polariton condensates based on the Gross-Pitaevskii equations.

Findings

Energy accumulation over multiple polariton lifetimes.

Blowup occurs after reaching the parametric scattering threshold.

Tradeoff between transition latency and pump power.

Abstract

Basing on the Gross-Pitaevskii equations, it is predicted that a repulsive (defocusing) interaction makes a 2D polariton condensate able to accumulate its energy under above-resonance optical pumping. The energy can be accumulated during a lot of polariton lifetimes, resulting in the state in which the mismatch of the pump frequency is compensated by the blueshift of the polariton resonance. The process begins when the field density reaches the parametric scattering threshold that is inversely proportional to the polariton lifetime. Although the increase in energy may be arbitrarily slow in its beginning, it is followed by a blowup. This scenario applies to the case of the transitions between steady states in multistable cavity-polariton systems. There is a tradeoff between the latency of the transitions and the pump power involving them.