Dynamics of long-range order in an exciton-polariton condensate

Abstract

We report on time resolved measurements of the first order spatial coherence in an exciton polariton Bose-Einstein condensate. Long range spatial coherence is found to set in right at the onset of stimulated scattering, on a picosecond time scale. The coherence reaches its maximum value after the population and decays slower, staying up to a few hundreds of picoseconds. This behavior can be qualitatively reproduced, using a stochastic classical field model describing interaction between the polariton condensate and the exciton reservoir within a disordered potential.