Non-bosonic moir\'e excitons

Abstract

Optical excitations in moir\'e transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers lead to the creation of excitons, as electron-hole bound states, that are generically considered within a Bose-Hubbard framework. Here, we demonstrate that these composite particles obey an angular momentum commutation relation that is generally non-bosonic. This emergent spin description of excitons indicates a limitation to their occupancy on each site, which is substantial in the weak electron-hole binding regime. The effective exciton theory is accordingly a spin Hamiltonian, which further becomes a Hubbard model of emergent bosons subject to an occupancy constraint after a Holstein-Primakoff transformation. We apply our theory to three commonly studied bilayers (MoSe2/WSe2, WSe2/WS2, and WSe2/MoS2) and show that in the relevant parameter regimes their allowed occupancies never exceed three excitons. Our systematic theory provides guidelines for future research on the many-body physics of moir\'e excitons.