Transmutation of skyrmions to half-solitons driven by the nonlinear optical spin Hall effect

Vector gap solitons of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate in honeycomb optical lattices

The combination of the two hot topics of spin-orbit coupling and honeycomb lattices leads to the appearance of fascinating issues. In this paper, we investigate the existence and stability of vector gap solitons of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates loaded in honeycomb optical lattices. The existence and stability of vector gap solitons are highly sensitive to the properties of interspin and intraspin atomic interaction. We numerically obtain the parametric dependence of the existence of vector gap solitons both in the semi-infinite gap and in the first gap. Since only dynamically stable localized modes in nonlinear systems are likely to be generated and observed in experiments, we examine the stability of the vector gap solitons by using the direct evolution dynamics, and obtain the phase diagram of stable and unstable vector gap solitons on the parameter plane of interspin and intraspin atomic interactions.

Full characterization of vector eigenstates in symmetrically confined systems with photonic spin-orbit coupling

The photonic spin-orbit (SO) coupling is a widely investigated effect in optical microcavities leading to various interesting physical phenomena and potential applications. We report the full sets of eigenenergies and eigenstates in a symmetrically confined potential under the effect of SO coupling induced by the transverse-electric transverse-magnetic (TE-TM) splitting, which are derived analytically via the degenerate perturbation theory. We obtained the eigenenergies and the eigenstates from the 1st to the 6th orders of excited manifold, and demonstrate unambiguously that universal rules governing the mode formation exist in such complicated photonic systems, making the modes exhibiting the features of solid and hollow skyrmions as well as spin vortices. We show that these eigenstates can be described by the SO coupled hyperspheres that can be decomposed into a series of higher-order Poincare spheres. Our results significantly extend the area of microcavity spin-optronics to the general theory of eigenvalues in confined systems, and provide an efficient theoretical frame for the information processing using microcavity-based high-dimensional vector states.

Time Translation Symmetry Breaking in an Isolated Spin-Orbit-Coupled Fluid of Light

We study the interplay between intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and nonlinear photon-photon interactions in a nonparaxial, elliptically polarized fluid of light propagating in a bulk Kerr medium. We find that in situations where the nonlinear interactions induce birefringence, i.e., a polarization-dependent nonlinear refractive index, their interplay with spin-orbit coupling results in an interference between the two polarization components of the fluid traveling at different wave vectors, which entails the breaking of translation symmetry along the propagation direction. This phenomenon leads to a Floquet band structure in the Bogoliubov spectrum of the fluid, and to characteristic oscillations of its intensity correlations. We characterize these oscillations in detail and point out their exponential growth at large propagation distances, revealing the presence of parametric resonances.

Interaction between an Impurity and Nonlinear Excitations in a Polariton Condensate

Exploring the dynamics of a mobile impurity immersed in field excitations is challenging, as it requires to account for the entanglement between the impurity and the surrounding excitations. To this end, the impurity's effective mass has to be considered as finite, rather than infinite. Here, we theoretically investigate the interaction between a finite-mass impurity and a dissipative soliton representing nonlinear excitations in the polariton Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Using the Lagrange variational method and the open-dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we analytically derive the interaction phase diagram between the impurity and a dissipative bright soliton in the polariton BEC. Depending on the impurity mass, we find the dissipative soliton colliding with the impurity can transmit through, get trapped, or be reflected. This work opens a new perspective in understanding the impurity dynamics when immersed in field excitations, as well as potential applications in information processing with polariton solitons.

Half-skyrmions with higher topological quantum numbers in homogeneous exciton-polariton condensates

We investigate the topological excitations of half-quantum vortices (HQVs) with higher topological quantum numbers in a homogeneous spinor exciton-polariton condensate pumped by a laser beam and an additional coherent light carrying orbital angular momentum. The spin texture and integrated topological charge can be controlled through the pump. Among these textures, the polaritonic half-skyrmions (or polaritonic merons) can be created with a suitable excitation condition. Moreover, when the pump polarization is in favor of the vortex component of the HQV, there is an inversion of circular polarization (spin flipping) from the center of the HQV towards the edge. The radial flipping position can be manipulated by the pump polarization or power. Finally, we demonstrate that the HQVs can stably exist from the linear stability analysis.

Moiré pattern of interference dislocations in condensate of indirect excitons

Interference patterns provide direct measurement of coherent propagation of matter waves in quantum systems. Superfluidity in Bose-Einstein condensates of excitons can enable long-range ballistic exciton propagation and can lead to emerging long-scale interference patterns. Indirect excitons (IXs) are formed by electrons and holes in separated layers. The theory predicts that the reduced IX recombination enables IX superfluid propagation over macroscopic distances. Here, we present dislocation-like phase singularities in interference patterns produced by condensate of IXs. We analyze how exciton vortices and skyrmions should appear in the interference experiments and show that the observed interference dislocations are not associated with these phase defects. We show that the observed interference dislocations originate from the moiré effect in combined interference patterns of propagating condensate matter waves. The interference dislocations are formed by the IX matter waves ballistically propagating over macroscopic distances. The long-range ballistic IX propagation is the evidence for IX condensate superfluidity.

Chiral condensates in a polariton hexagonal ring

We model the generation of vortex modes in exciton-polariton condensates in semiconductor micropillars, arranged into a hexagonal ring molecule, in the presence of TE-TM splitting. This splitting lifts the degeneracy of azimuthally modulated vortex modes with opposite topological charges supported by this structure, so that a number of non-degenerate vortex states characterized by different combinations of topological charges in two polarization components appears. We present a full bifurcation picture for such vortex modes and show that because they have different energies they can be selectively excited by coherent pump beams with specific frequencies and spatial configurations. At high pumping intensity, polariton-polariton interactions give rise to the coupling of different vortex resonances and a bistable regime is achieved.

Multivalley engineering in semiconductor microcavities

We consider exciton-photon coupling in semiconductor microcavities in which separate periodic potentials have been embedded for excitons and photons. We show theoretically that this system supports degenerate ground-states appearing at non-zero inplane momenta, corresponding to multiple valleys in reciprocal space, which are further separated in polarization corresponding to a polarization-valley coupling in the system. Aside forming a basis for valleytronics, the multivalley dispersion is predicted to allow for spontaneous momentum symmetry breaking and two-mode squeezing under non-resonant and resonant excitation, respectively.

Spin Textures of Exciton-Polaritons in a Tunable Microcavity with Large TE-TM Splitting

We report an extended family of spin textures of zero-dimensional exciton-polaritons spatially confined in tunable open microcavity structures. The transverse-electric-transverse-magnetic (TE-TM) splitting, which is enhanced in the open cavity structures, leads to polariton eigenstates carrying quantized spin vortices. Depending on the strength and anisotropy of the cavity confining potential and of the TE-TM induced splitting, which can be tuned via the excitonic or photonic fractions, the exciton-polariton emissions exhibit either spin-vortex-like patterns or linear polarization, in good agreement with theoretical modeling.

Spin-orbit coupling and the optical spin Hall effect in photonic graphene

We study the spin-orbit coupling induced by the splitting between TE and TM optical modes in a photonic honeycomb lattice. Using a tight-binding approach, we calculate analytically the band structure. Close to the Dirac point, we derive an effective Hamiltonian. We find that the local reduced symmetry (D_{3h}) transforms the TE-TM effective magnetic field into an emergent field with a Dresselhaus symmetry. As a result, particles become massive, but no gap opens. The emergent field symmetry is revealed by the optical spin Hall effect.

High-speed DC transport of emergent monopoles in spinor photonic fluids

We investigate the spin dynamics of half-solitons in quantum fluids of interacting photons (exciton polaritons). Half-solitons, which behave as emergent monopoles, can be accelerated by the presence of effective magnetic fields. We study the generation of dc magnetic currents in a gas of half-solitons. At low densities, the current is suppressed due to the dipolar oscillations. At moderate densities, a magnetic current is recovered as a consequence of the collisions between the carriers. We show a deviation from Ohm's law due to the competition between dipoles and monopoles.

Pseudospin-induced motion of cavity polariton soliton molecules

We study the effect of pseudospin precession of exciton-polaritons, known as optical spin Hall effect, on the dynamics of polariton solitons in semiconductor microresonators operating in the strong-coupling regime. We demonstrate that elliptically polarized polariton solitons, coherently driven by a linearly polarized pump, can form robust bound states. Due to spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion, these polariton soliton molecules move uniformly in the mirror plane provided transverse electric-transverse magnetic mode splitting is taken into account.

Non-Abelian gauge fields in photonic cavities and photonic superfluids

We show that the TE-TM modes splitting and the structure anisotropy of a semiconductor microcavity combine into a non-Abelian gauge field for exciton-polaritons or cavity photons. The field texture can be tuned simply by rotating the sample and ranges continuously from a Rashba to a monopolar field. In the noninteracting regime, the latter leads to remarkable focusing and conical diffraction effects. In the interacting regime, the spin-orbit coupling induces a breakdown of superfluidity. The spatially homogeneous flows become unstable and dynamically evolve into spin textured states, such as stripes or domain walls.

Skyrmion formation and optical spin-Hall effect in an expanding coherent cloud of indirect excitons

We provide a theoretical description of the polarization pattern and phase singularities experimentally evidenced recently in a condensate of indirect excitons [H. High et al., Nature 483, 584 (2012)]. We show that the averaging of the electron and hole orbital motion leads to a comparable spin-orbit interaction for both types of carriers. We demonstrate that the interplay between a radial coherent flux of bright indirect excitons and the Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction results in the formation of spin domains and of topological defects similar to Skyrmions. We reproduce qualitatively all the features of the experimental data and obtain a polarization pattern as in the optical spin-Hall effect despite the different symmetry of the spin-orbit interactions.