Alnatah, Hassan;
Comaron, Paolo;
Mukherjee, Shouvik;
Beaumariage, Jonathan;
Pfeiffer, Loren N;
West, Ken;
Baldwin, Kirk;
... Snoke, David W; + view all
(2024)
Critical fluctuations in a confined driven-dissipative quantum condensate.
Science Advances
, 10
(12)
, Article eadi6762. 10.1126/sciadv.adi6762.
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Abstract
Phase fluctuations determine the low-energy properties of quantum condensates. However, at the condensation threshold, both density and phase fluctuations are relevant. While strong emphasis has been given to the investigation of phase fluctuations, which dominate the physics of the quantum system away from the critical point, number fluctuations have been much less explored even in thermal equilibrium. In this work, we report experimental observation and theoretical description of fluctuations in a circularly confined nonequilibrium Bose-Einstein condensate of polaritons near the condensation threshold. We observe critical fluctuations, which combine the number fluctuations of a single-mode condensate state and competition between different states. The latter is analogous to mode hopping in photon lasers. Our theoretical analysis indicates that this phenomenon is of a quantum character, while classical noise of the pump is not sufficient to explain the experiments. The manifestation of a critical quantum state competition unlocks possibilities for the study of condensate formation while linking to practical realizations in photonic lasers.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Critical fluctuations in a confined driven-dissipative quantum condensate |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1126/sciadv.adi6762 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi6762 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10190111 |
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