Sustained propagation and control of topological excitations in polariton superfluid

Abstract

We present a simple method to compensate for losses in a polariton superfluid. Based on a weak support field, it allows for the extended propagation of a resonantly driven polariton superfluid with minimal energetic cost. Moreover, this setup is based on optical bistability and leads to the significant release of the phase constraint imposed by resonant driving. This release, together with macroscopic polariton propagation, offers a unique opportunity to study the hydrodynamics of the topological excitations of polariton superfluids such as quantized vortices and dark solitons. We numerically study how the coherent field supporting the superfluid flow interacts with the vortices and how it can be used to control them. Interestingly, we show that standard hydrodynamics does not apply for this driven-dissipative fluid and new types of behaviour are identified.

Keywords

• polariton superfluid
• optical bistability
• vortex stream
• coherent fluid of light
• 42.65.-k
• 47.37.+q