Quantum fluctuations in a strongly interacting Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer polariton condensate at thermal equilibrium

Abstract

Microcavity electron-hole-photon systems in two-dimensions are long anticipated to exhibit a crossover from Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid, when carrier density is tuned to reach the Mott transition density. Yet, theoretical understanding of such a BEC-BCS crossover largely relies on the mean-field framework and the nature of the carriers at the crossover remains unclear to some extent. Here, motivated by the recent demonstration of a BCS polariton laser {[}Hu \textit{et al.}, arXiv:1902.00142{]} and based on a simplified short-range description of the electron-hole attraction, we examine the role of quantum fluctuations in an exciton-polariton condensate at thermal equilibrium and determine the number of different type carriers at the crossover beyond mean-field. Near Mott density and with ultra-strong light-matter coupling, we find an unexpectedly large phase window for a strongly correlated BCS polariton condensate, where both fermionic Bogoliubov quasi-particles and bosonic excitons are significantly populated and strongly couple to photons. We predict its photoluminescence spectra and show that the upper polariton energy gets notably renormalized, giving rise to a high-energy side-peak at large carrier density, as observed in recent experiments.