Berry Phase Effect on the Exciton Transport and on the Exciton Bose-Einstein Condensate

Abstract

With the exciton lifetime much extended in semiconductor quantum-well structures, the exciton transport and Bose-Einstein condensation have become a focus of research in recent years. We reveal a momentum-space gauge field in the exciton center-of-mass dynamics due to Berry phase effects. We predict a spin-dependent transport of the excitons analogous to the anomalous Hall and Nernst effects for electrons. We also predict spin-dependent circulation of a trapped exciton gas and instability in an exciton condensate in favor of vortex formation.