Bright solitons in spontaneously formed polariton networks

Abstract

Bright solitons in a polariton fluid are excitations with a comparatively high intensity that flow without dissipation in spite of a finite lifetime of polaritons. Under resonant driving conditions, bright polariton solitons can be created using a two-beam excitation scheme which includes a plane-wave pump and a focused beam injecting a soliton at a certain location [O. A. Egorov et al., PRL 102, 153904 (2009)]. Here we discuss a new mechanism of soliton formation which takes place under plane-wave driving in a perfectly uniform microcavity wire—i.e., with no writing beams or seeding inhomogeneities. The key phenomenon underlying formation of solitons in this case is the spontaneous breaking of continuous symmetry and onset of periodic spin networks [S. S. Gavrilov, PRL 120, 033901 (2018)].