Cavity Jahn-Teller Polaritons in Molecules

Abstract

We investigate Jahn-Teller (JT) polaritons, which emerge from the interaction of the two normal-incidence electromagnetic modes with perpendicular polarizations in a Fabry-Perot cavity resonator with JT active systems. These JT polaritons are characterized by a mixed $(+/-)$--circular electromagnetic polarization that originates from the molecular JT vibronic coupling of the material subsystem. Consequently, the exchange of photonic and vibronic angular momenta can be very efficient; exciting the cavity-JT system with short, polarized light pulses results in a dynamical and oscillatory response of the polarization in the cavity medium. Due to the photonic-vibronic coupling, we show how the cavity polarization direction becomes frequency dependent and does not necessarily coincide with the polarization direction of the external fields used to drive the system.