Galilean boosts and superfluidity of resonantly driven polariton fluids in the presence of an incoherent reservoir

Abstract

We theoretically investigate how the presence of a reservoir of incoherent excitations affects the superfluidity properties of resonantly driven polariton fluids. While in the absence of reservoir the two cases of a defect moving in a fluid at rest and of a fluid flowing against a static defect are linked by a formal Galilean transformation, where the reservoir defines a privileged reference frame attached to the semiconductor structure and causes markedly different features between the two settings. The consequences on the critical velocity for superfluidity are highlighted and compared to experiments in resonantly driven excitons polaritons.