Correlated phases of moat-band excitons in two dimensions

Abstract

We study dilute two-dimensional systems of interacting excitons with a moat dispersion, whose ground-state manifold consists of a set of discrete or continuously degenerate energy minima. At low densities and in the presence of contact interactions, it is known that the bosons can undergo statistical transmutation and give rise to a chiral spin liquid. Here, we show that long-range interactions such as those expected in excitonic systems introduce a rich competition between the chiral spin liquid and different kinds of Bose-Einstein condensates. The moat dispersion can favor Bose-Einstein condensation into states occupying multiple momenta, leading to inhomogeneous and supersolid phases with a highly anisotropic superfluid response. We demonstrate that a proper $T$-matrix renormalization of the exciton-exciton interaction is essential for describing these phases and show that they can arise even from purely repulsive interactions. This formalism is employed to obtain the phase diagram of competing homogeneous and stripe condensates with the chiral spin liquid in an electron-hole bilayer model. In addition, we show how the $T$ matrix enters the familiar Gross-Pitaevskii framework and map out extended phase diagrams within a pseudopotential approximation. We place our findings in the context of real excitonic systems by discussing the roles of finite lifetimes, disorder, band-structure warping, and nonzero temperatures. We conclude that moat bands can drive Bose-Einstein condensation and supersolidity already at weak coupling, in contrast to the case of a standard parabolic dispersion.