arXiv subjects

M. Combescot

Publications and source records attributed to M. Combescot.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2008

Effect of fermionic components on trion-electron scattering

To test the validity of replacing a composite fermion by an elementary fermion, we here calculate the transition rate from a state made of one free electron and one trion to a similar electron-trion pair, through the time evolution of such a pair induced by Coulomb interaction between elementary fermions. To do it in a convenient way, we describe the trion as one electron interacting with one exciton, and we use the tools we have developed in the new composite-exciton many-body theory. The trion-electron scattering contains a direct channel in which ``in'' and ``out'' trions are made with the same fermions, and an exchange channel in which the ``in'' free electron becomes one of the ``out'' trion components. As expected, momenta are conserved in these two channels. The direct scattering is found to read as the bare Coulomb potential between elementary particles multiplied by a form factor which depends on the ``in'' and ``out'' trion relative motion indices $η$ and $η'$, this factor reducing to $δ_{ηη'}$ in the zero momentum transfer limit: In this direct channel, the trion at large distance reacts as an elementary particle, its composite nature showing up for large momentum transfer. On the contrary, the fact that the trion is not elementary does affect the exchange channel for all momentum transfers. We thus conclude that a 3-component fermion behaves as an elementary fermion for direct processes in the small momentum transfer limit only.

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arXiv2008

A predicted "Faraday oscillation" in photoexcited semiconductors

While, for semiconductors photoexcited by a circularly polarized pump, the polarization plane of a linearly polarized probe has been shown to rotate, we here predict a spectacular change when the pump beam is linearly polarized, from Faraday rotation to Faraday oscillation, the oscillation of the polarization plane going along a change of the photon polarization from linear to elliptical. This effect, which reduces to zero when the probe field is parallel or perpendicular to the pump field, comes from coherence between the real excitons created by the pump and the virtual exciton coupled to the unabsorbed probe, as easy to see from the Shiva diagrams which represent the many-body physics taking place in this coupled photon-composite-exciton system.

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arXiv2007

Microscopic derivation of Frenkel excitons in second quantization

Starting from the microscopic hamiltonian describing free electrons in a periodic lattice, we derive the hamiltonian appropriate to Frenkel excitons. This is done through a grouping of terms different from the one leading to Wannier excitons. This grouping makes appearing the atomic states as a relevant basis to describe Frenkel excitons in the second quantization. Using them, we derive the Frenkel exciton creation operators as well as the commutators which rule these operators and which make the Frenkel excitons differing from elementary bosons. The main goal of the present paper is to provide the necessary grounds for future works on Frenkel exciton many-body effects, with the composite nature of these particles treated exactly through a procedure similar to the one we have recently developed for Wannier excitons.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2007

Polariton-polariton scattering: exact results through a novel approach

We present a fully microscopic approach to the transition rate of two exciton-photon polaritons. The non-trivial consequences of the polariton composite nature -- here treated exactly through a development of our composite-exciton many-body theory -- lead to results noticeably different from the ones of the conventional approaches in which polaritons are mapped into elementary bosons. Our work reveals an appealing fundamental scattering which corresponds to a photon-assisted exchange -- in the absence of Coulomb process. This scattering being dominant when one of the scattered polaritons has a strong photon character, it should be directly accessible to experiment. In the case of microcavity polaritons, it produces a significant enhancement of the polariton transition rate when compared to the one coming from Coulomb interaction. This paper also contains the crucial tools to securely tackle the many-body physics of polaritons, in particular towards its possible BEC.

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arXiv2007

Exciton-exciton scattering: Composite boson versus elementary boson

This paper introduces a new quantum object, the ``coboson'', for composite particles, like the excitons, which are made of two fermions. Although commonly dealed with as elementary bosons, these composite bosons -- ``cobosons'' in short -- differ from them due to their composite nature which makes the handling of their many-body effects quite different from the existing treatments valid for elementary bosons. Due to this composite nature, it is not possible to correctly describe the interaction between cobosons as a potential $V$. Consequently, the standard Fermi golden rule, written in terms of $V$, cannot be used to obtain the transition rates between exciton states. Through an unconventional expression for this Fermi golden rule, which is here given in terms of the Hamiltonian only, we here give a detailed calculation of the time evolution of two excitons. We compare the results of this exact approach with the ones obtained by using an effective bosonic exciton Hamiltonian. We show that the relation between the inverse lifetime and the sum of transition rates for elementary bosons differs from the one of composite bosons by a factor of 1/2, whatever the mapping from composite bosons to elementary bosons is. The present paper thus constitutes a strong mathematical proof that, in spite of a widely spread belief, we cannot forget the composite nature of these cobosons, even in the extremely low density limit of just two excitons. This paper also shows the (unexpected) cancellation, in the Born approximation, of the two-exciton transition rate for a finite value of the momentum transfer.

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arXiv2007

Shiva diagrams for composite-boson many-body effects : How they work

The purpose of this paper is to show how the diagrammatic expansion in fermion exchanges of scalar products of $N$-composite-boson (``coboson'') states can be obtained in a practical way. The hard algebra on which this expansion is based, will be given in an independent publication. Due to the composite nature of the particles, the scalar products of $N$-coboson states do not reduce to a set of Kronecker symbols, as for elementary bosons, but contain subtle exchange terms between two or more cobosons. These terms originate from Pauli exclusion between the fermionic components of the particles. While our many-body theory for composite bosons leads to write these scalar products as complicated sums of products of ``Pauli scatterings'' between \emph{two} cobosons, they in fact correspond to fermion exchanges between any number P of quantum particles, with $2 \leq P\leq N$. These $P$-body exchanges are nicely represented by the so-called ``Shiva diagrams'', which are topologically different from Feynman diagrams, due to the intrinsic many-body nature of Pauli exclusion from which they originate. These Shiva diagrams in fact constitute the novel part of our composite-exciton many-body theory which was up to now missing to get its full diagrammatic representation. Using them, we can now ``see'' through diagrams the physics of any quantity in which enters $N$ interacting excitons -- or more generally $N$ composite bosons --, with fermion exchanges included in an \emph{exact} -- and transparent -- way.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2006

The exciton many-body theory extended to arbitrary composite bosons

We have recently constructed a many-body theory for composite excitons, in which the possible carrier exchanges between $N$ excitons can be treated exactly through a set of dimensionless ``Pauli scatterings'' between two excitons. Many-body effects with excitons turn out to be rather simple because excitons are the exact one-electron-hole-pair eigenstates of the semiconductor Hamiltonian, thus forming a complete orthogonal set for one-pair states. It can however be of interest to extend this new many-body theory to more complicated composite bosons, \emph{i. e.}, ``cobosons'', which are not necessarily the one-pair eigenstates of the system Hamiltonian, nor even orthogonal. The purpose of this paper is to derive the ``Pauli scatterings'' and the ``interaction scatterings'' of these cobosons formally, \emph{i. e.}, just in terms of their wave functions and the interaction potentials which exist between the fermions from which they are constructed. We also explain how to derive many-body effects in this very general system of composite bosons.

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arXiv2006

Electron teleportation between quantum dots using virtual dark exciton

We here propose a mechanism to teleport electrons between quantum dots through the transformation of a virtual bright exciton into a dark exciton. This mechanism relies on the interactions of two composite bosons: a pair of electrons with opposite spins, trapped in two dots and an electron-hole pair in a free exciton coupled to an unabsorbed pump pulse, which makes it ``bright'' but virtual. This bright exciton first turns ``dark'' by dropping its electron and stealing the trapped electron with opposite spin through an exchange Coulomb process with the trapped pair. In a second step, the dark exciton ``flies'' with its electron to the other dot where it turns bright again, by the inverse process. The ``Shiva diagrams'' for composite boson many-body effects that we have recently introduced, enlighten this understanding.

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arXiv2005

Faraday rotation in photoexcited semiconductors: an excitonic many-body effect

This letter assigns the Faraday rotation in photoexcited semiconductors to ``Pauli interactions'', \emph{i}. \emph{e}., carrier exchanges, between the real excitons present in the sample and the virtual excitons coupled to the $σ_{\pm}$ parts of a linearly polarized light. While \emph{direct Coulomb} interactions scatter bright excitons into bright excitons, whatever their spins are, \emph{Pauli} interactions do it for bright excitons \emph{with same spin only}. This makes these Pauli interactions entirely responsible for the refractive index difference, which comes from processes in which the virtual exciton which is created and the one which recombines are formed with different carriers. To write this difference in terms of photon detuning and exciton density, we use our new many-body theory for interacting excitons. Its multiarm ``Shiva'' diagrams for $N$-body exchanges make transparent the physics involved in the various terms. This work also shows the interesting link which exists between Faraday rotation and the exciton optical Stark effect.

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arXiv2005

How composite bosons really interact

The aim of this paper is to clarify the conceptual difference which exists between the interactions of composite bosons and the interactions of elementary bosons. A special focus is made on the physical processes which are missed when composite bosons are replaced by elementary bosons. Although what is here said directly applies to excitons, it is also valid for bosons in other fields than semiconductor physics. We in particular explain how the two basic scatterings -- Coulomb and Pauli -- of our many-body theory for composite excitons can be extended to a pair of fermions which is not an Hamiltonian eigenstate -- as for example a pair of trapped electrons, of current interest in quantum information.

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arXiv2004

Many-body origin of the "trion line"

We show that the so-called "trion line" in the absorption spectrum of doped quantum wells, comes from a singular many-body object, intrinsically wide in energy: the photocreated virtual exciton dressed by Coulomb and Pauli interactions with the well carriers. This understanding is supported by the spectra of circular dichroism obtained with a spin-polarized Fermi sea: the sharp edge on the low-energy side and the significant tail at high energies are well explained by these many-body effects, not by bound 3-body trions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2004

Many-body effects between unbosonized excitons

We here give a brief survey of our new many-body theory for composite excitons, as well as some of the results we have already obtained using it. In view of them, we conclude that, in order to fully trust the results one finds, interacting excitons should not be bosonized: Indeed, all effective bosonic Hamiltonians (even the hermitian ones !) can miss terms as large as the ones they generate; they can even miss the dominant term, as in problems dealing with optical nonlinearities.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2004

Major difference between true bosons and "proteons"

We call "proteons" -- from the ever-changing greek sea-god $Πρωτε\upsilonς$ -- composite particles made of two fermions. Among them, are the semiconductor excitons, but also various atoms and molecules, like the giant molecules made of two $^{40}$K or $^6$Li atoms which have recently Bose condensed. In addition to their indistinguishability, these composite particles are ``ever-changing'' in the sense that there is no way to know with which fermions they are precisely made. As direct consequences, (i) the proteons are not true bosons, (ii) the basis made with proteon states is \emph{overcomplete}. In spite of these difficulties, these proteons do have a nice closure relation, unexpected at first, \emph{different from the boson one} and which makes the bosonization procedures used up to now to treat many-body effects between composite bosons, rather questionable, due to possibly incorrect sum rules resulting from it. This closure relation in particular explains, in a neat way, the surprising factor 1/2 between the inverse lifetime and the sum of scattering rates which exists for exact excitons but not for boson excitons, as we have recently shown.

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arXiv2004

Scattering rates and lifetime of exact and boson excitons

Although excitons are not exact bosons, they are commonly treated as such provided that their composite nature is included in effective scatterings dressed by exchange. We here \emph{prove} that, \emph{whatever these scatterings are}, they cannot give both the scattering rates $T_{ij}^{-1}$ and the exciton lifetime $τ_0$, correctly: A striking factor 1/2 exists between $τ_0^{-1}$ and the sum of $T_{ij}^{-1}$'s, which originates from the composite nature of excitons, irretrievably lost when they are bosonized. This result, which appears as very disturbing at first, casts major doubts on bosonization for problems dealing with \emph{interacting} excitons.

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arXiv2004

Theory of spin precession monitored by laser pulse

We first predict the splitting of a spin degenerate impurity level when this impurity is irradiated by a circularly polarized laser beam tuned in the transparency region of a semiconductor. This splitting, which comes from different exchange processes between the impurity electron and the virtual pairs coupled to the pump beam, induces a spin precession around the laser beam axis, which lasts as long as the pump pulse. It can thus be used for ultrafast spin manipulation. This effect, which has similarities with the exciton optical Stark effect we studied long ago, is here derived using the concepts we developed very recently to treat many-body interactions between composite excitons and which make the physics of this type of effects quite transparent. They, in particular, allow to easily extend this work to other experimental situations in which a spin rotates under laser irradiation.

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arXiv2004

Excitons dressed by a sea of excitons

We here consider an exciton $i$ embedded in a sea of $N$ identical excitons 0. If the excitons are bosonized, a bosonic enhancement factor, proportional to $N$, is found for $i=0$. If the exciton composite nature is kept, this enhancement not only exists for $i=0$, but also for any exciton having a center of mass momentum equal to the sea exciton momentum. This physically comes from the fact that an exciton with such a momentum can be transformed into a sea exciton by ``Pauli scattering'', \emph{i}. \emph{e}., carrier exchange with the sea, making this $i$ exciton not so much different from a 0 exciton. This possible scattering, directly linked to the composite nature of the excitons, is irretrievably lost when the excitons are bosonized. This work in fact deals with the quite tricky scalar products of $N$-exciton states. It actually constitutes a crucial piece of our new many-body theory for interacting composite bosons, because all physical effects involving these composite bosons ultimately end by calculating such scalar products. The ``Pauli diagrams'' we here introduce to represent them, allow to visualize many-body effects linked to carrier exchange in an easy way. They are conceptually different from Feynman diagrams, because of the special feature of the ``Pauli scatterings'': These scatterings, which originate from the departure from boson statistics, do not have their equivalent in Feynman diagrams, the commutation rules for exact bosons (or fermions) being included in the first line of the usual many-body theories.

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arXiv2004

The trion: two electrons plus one hole versus one electron plus one exciton

We first show that, for problems dealing with trions, it is totally hopeless to use the standard many-body description in terms of electrons and holes and its associated Feynman diagrams. We then show how, by using the description of a trion as an electron interacting with an exciton, we can obtain the trion absorption through far simpler diagrams, written with electrons and \emph{excitons}. These diagrams are quite novel because, for excitons being not exact bosons, we cannot use standard procedures designed to deal with interacting true fermions or true bosons. A new many-body formalism is necessary to establish the validity of these electron-exciton diagrams and to derive their specific rules. It relies on the ``commutation technique'' we recently developed to treat interacting close-to-bosons. This technique generates a scattering associated to direct Coulomb processes between electrons and excitons and a dimensionless ``scattering'' associated to electron exchange inside the electron-exciton pairs -- this ``scattering'' being the original part of our many-body theory. It turns out that, although exchange is crucial to differentiate singlet from triplet trions, this ``scattering'' enters the absorption explicitly when the photocreated electron and the initial electron have the same spin -- \emph{i}. \emph{e}., when triplet trions are the only ones created -- \emph{but not} when the two spins are different, although triplet trions are also created in this case. The physical reason for this rather surprising result will be given.

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arXiv2003

Novel approach to nonlinear susceptibility

The calculation of the third order susceptibility still is a long standing fundamental problem of particular importance in nonlinear nanooptics: Indeed, cancellation of size-dependent terms coming from uncorrelated excitations is expected, but up to now shown for very simple Hamiltonians only. Using a many-body theory recently developed to handle interacting close-to-bosons, we prove it here for \emph{arbitrary} H. This new formalism actually provides the first clean way to calculate nonlinear susceptibilities, with results different from previous ones.

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