Work

Kardar-Parisi-Zhang universality in optically induced lattices of exciton-polariton condensates

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: We investigate space-time coherence in one-dimensional lattices of exciton-polariton condensates formed by fully reconfigurable nonresonant optical pumping. Starting from a driven-dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii equation with deterministic reservoir kinetics and stochastic condensate noise, we derive a discrete complex-field model that incorporates coherent tunneling, reservoir-mediated dissipative coupling, and gain-saturation nonlinearity. The combination of these mechanisms, playing a crucial role in synchronization of driven-dissipative polariton condensate lattices, provides a multidimensional parameter space, allowing controllable switching between Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) and Edward-Wilkinson (EW) dynamics. Adiabatic elimination of fast density fluctuations reveals a wedge-shaped region in the complex hopping plane where the coarse-grained phase dynamics reduces to the KPZ equation. By computing high-resolution phase diagrams of the temporal and spatial scaling exponents we pinpoint the boundaries separating the KPZ domain from the EW regime. Large-scale graphics processing unit (GPU) simulations of chains containing up to $N=2000$ condensates confirm these predictions: inside the wedge the exponents converge to ${\ensuremath{\beta}}_{N}=\mathbf{0}.\mathbf{329}(3)\ensuremath{\approx}1/3$ and ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{N}=\mathbf{0}.\mathbf{504}(4)\ensuremath{\approx}1/2$, whereas outside it the dynamics moves away from KPZ and ultimately flow toward the EW fixed point, although finite system size and finite observation time may yield intermediate effective exponents.

Source: Physical review. B./Physical review. B

DOI: 10.1103/ym2g-t8vj