Statistics of the polariton condensate

Abstract

The influence of polariton-polariton scattering on the statistics of the polariton condensate in a non-resonantly excited semiconductor quantum well embedded in a CdTe semiconductor microcavity is discussed. Taking advantage of the existence of a bottleneck in the polariton dispersion curve, the polariton states are separated into two domains: reservoir polaritons inside the bottleneck and active polaritons with wave vector q whose energy lies below the bottleneck. In the framework of the master equation formalism, the non-equilibrium stationary reduced density matrix is calculated and the statistics of polaritons in the condensate at q=0 is determined. The anomalous correlations between the polaritons in the condensate and those with wave vectors q, -q leads to an enhancement of the noise in the condensate. As a consequence, the second order correlation function of the condensate does not show the full coherence that is characteristic of laser emission.