Exciton Condensation

LeeAnn M. Sager-Smith, Shiva Safaei, David A. Mazziotti

An extensive theoretical and experimental investigation has been conducted on fermion-pair condensation and exciton condensation as distinct classes of Bose-Einstein-like condensation. In this Rapid Communication, the existence of a fermion-exciton condensate---a single quantum state in which the characters of both fermion-pair and exciton condensates coexist---is established computationally in the low-particle-number ($N$) limit and theoretically in the large-$N$ thermodynamic limit. The trade-off between the fermion-pair and excitonic character of the fermion-exciton condensate is shown to be elliptic in nature. The possibility that the properties of fermion-exciton condensates could be a hybrid of the properties of fermion-pair condensates and exciton condensates is discussed, and future experimental and computational exploration of this class of condensate, which may potentially be realizable in a bilayer of superconductors, is anticipated.

Michael S. Fuhrer, A. R. Hamilton

H. Haug

LeeAnn M. Sager-Smith, David A. Mazziotti

Fermion-exciton condensation in which both fermion-pair (i.e., superconductivity) and exciton condensations occur simultaneously in a single coherent quantum state has recently been conjectured to exist. Here, we capture the fermion-exciton condensation through a model Hamiltonian that can recreate the physics of this new class of highly correlated condensation phenomena. We demonstrate that the Hamiltonian generates the large-eigenvalue signatures of fermion-pair and exciton condensations for a series of states with increasing particle numbers. The results confirm that the dual-condensate wave function arises from the entanglement of fermion-pair and exciton wave functions, which we previously predicted in the thermodynamic limit. This model Hamiltonian---generalizing well-known model Hamiltonians for either superconductivity or exciton condensation---can explore a wide variety of condensation behavior. It provides significant insights into the required forces for generating a fermion-exciton condensate, which will likely be invaluable for realizing such condensations in realistic materials with applications from superconductors to excitonic materials.

Leonid A. Turkevich

Monique Combescot, Shiue-Yuan Shiau

Chapter 19 addresses bosonic condensation in composite bosons. It first considers the coboson ground-state energy, which is analytically known by now in the case of N Cooper pairs interacting via the reduced BCS potential but not yet known for N Wannier or Frenkel excitons, owing to the complexity of the Coulomb potential. Still, the chapter provides hints on how to derive the density linear term of the N-exciton ground-state energy in the case of Wannier excitons. It also discusses the role of the exciton composite nature in condensate momentum fragmentation, spin fragmentation, and condensate brightness. Indeed, the excitons that have the lowest energy and thus are the ones expected to condense are not coupled to light; so, the exciton condensate must be dark. However, a bright exciton condensate can appear, coherent with the dark exciton condensate, above a density threshold, owing to coupling induced by carrier exchange between dark excitons and bright excitons.