Coherence of two-dimensional electron-hole systems: Spontaneous breaking of continuous symmetries: A review

Abstract

The spontaneous breaking of the continuous symmetries of a two-dimensional electron-hole system in a strong magnetic field perpendicular to the plane leads to the formation of new ground states and determines the energy spectrum of collective elementary excitations that appear above these new ground states. In this review, the main attention is paid to the electron-hole system formed from coplanar magnetoexcitons under conditions of Bose-Einstein condensation in the ground state with the wave vector k = 0 taking into account the influence of excited Landau levels, when exciton-type elementary excitations coexist with plasmon-type oscillations. At the same time, the properties of a two-component system consisting of a two-dimensional electron gas and a two-dimensional hole gas spatially separated in a double quantum well under conditions of the fractional quantum Hall effect are of great interest, because these properties can affect the quantum states of magnetic excitons that are formed when the distance between the layers tends to zero. Bilayer electron systems are also considered under conditions of the fractional quantum Hall effect with the one-half filling factor for each layer and the total filling factor equal to unity for both layers. The coherence between the electron states in the two layers is equivalent to the formation of excitons in a macroscopic coherent state. This makes it possible to compare the energy spectrum of collective elementary excitations of Bose-Einstein condensed excitons under conditions of the quantum Hall effect and coplanar magnetoexcitons. The breaking of the global gauge symmetry or of the continuous rotational symmetry leads to the formation of a gapless spectrum of the Nambu-Goldstone type, whereas the breaking of the local gauge symmetry is accompanied by the appearance of a gap in the energy spectrum (Higgs phenomenon). These phenomena are equivalent to the formation of massless and massive particles in the relativistic physics. The application of the Nielsen-Chadha theorem, which determines the number of Nambu-Goldstone modes as a function of the number of broken symmetry operators, is demonstrated using the example of Bose-Einstein condensation of spinor atomic gases in an optical trap. This example is presented for a better understanding of the results obtained in the case of a Bose-Einstein condensation of coplanar magnetoexcitons. The Higgs phenomenon leads to the formation of composite particles under conditions of the fractional quantum Hall effect. Their description is given in terms of the Ginzburg-Landau theory. The possibilities for the appearance of spontaneous coherence in a system of indirect excitons in structures with a double quantum well are analyzed. The experimental attempts to create these conditions, the main results obtained in this field, and the accumulated knowledge are reviewed. The basic properties of the energy spectrum of magnetoexciton polaritons in a microcavity are formulated. A hypothesis is put forward about the possibility of forming two-dimensional magnetoexcitons and two-dimensional magnetoexciton polaritons of high density with attached point quantum vortices, i.e., about the possibility of forming new composite particles.