Excitonic condensation in a symmetric electron-hole bilayer

Abstract

Using Diffusion Monte Carlo simulations we have investigated the ground state of a symmetric electron-hole bilayer and determined its phase diagram at T=0. We find clear evidence of an excitonic condensate, whose stability however is affected by in-layer electronic correlation. This stabilizes the electron-hole plasma at large values of the density or inter-layer distance, and the Wigner crystal at low density and large distance. We have also estimated pair correlation functions and low order density matrices, to give a microscopic characterization of correlations, as well as to try and estimate the condensate fraction.