Coherently driven microcavity-polaritons and the question of superfluidity

R. T. Juggins (), J. Keeling and M. H. Szymańska ()
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R. T. Juggins: University College London, Gower Street
J. Keeling: University of St Andrews
M. H. Szymańska: University College London, Gower Street

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Due to their driven-dissipative nature, photonic quantum fluids present new challenges in understanding superfluidity. Some associated effects have been observed, and notably the report of nearly dissipationless flow for coherently driven microcavity-polaritons was taken as a smoking gun for superflow. Here, we show that the superfluid response—the difference between responses to longitudinal and transverse forces—is zero for coherently driven polaritons. This is a consequence of the gapped excitation spectrum caused by external phase locking. Furthermore, while a normal component exists at finite pump momentum, the remainder forms a rigid state that is unresponsive to either longitudinal or transverse perturbations. Interestingly, the total response almost vanishes when the real part of the excitation spectrum has a linear dispersion, which was the regime investigated experimentally. This suggests that the observed suppression of scattering should be interpreted as a sign of this new rigid state and not a superfluid.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06436-2

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