Quasi-compactons and bistability in exciton-polariton condensates

Abstract

We address stationary patterns in exciton-polariton condensates supported by a narrow external pump beam, and we discover that even in the absence of trapping potentials, such condensates may support stable localized stationary dissipative solutions (quasi-compactons), whose field decays faster than exponentially or even vanishes everywhere outside the pump spot. More general conditions lead to dissipative solitons which may display bistability. The bistability in exciton-polariton condensates, which manifests itself in simultaneous existence of two stable and one unstable localized solitons with different amplitudes, widths, and exciton-photon fractions under the same physical conditions, strongly depends on the width of pump beam and is found to disappear for sufficiently narrow pump beams.