Absence of Long-Range Coherence in the Parametric Emission from Photonic Wires.pdf

a r X i v : c o n d - m a t / 0 5 1 2 4 6 4 v 3 [ c o n d - m a t .o t h e r ] 9 O c t 2 0 0 6 Absence of Long-Range Coherence in the Parametric Emission from Photonic Wires M. Wouters1, 2 and I. Carusotto1 1BEC-CNR-INFM and Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita? di Trento, I-38050 Povo, Italy 2TFVS, Universiteit Antwerpen, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Antwerpen, Belgium We analytically investigate the spatial coherence properties of the signal emission from one- dimensional optical parametric oscillators. Because of the reduced dimensionality, quantum fluc- tuations are able to destroy the long-range phase coherence even far above threshold. The spatial decay of coherence is exponential and, for realistic parameters of semiconductor photonic wires in the strong exciton-photon coupling regime, it is predicted to occur on an experimentally accessible length scale. PACS numbers: 42.25.Kb, 42.65.Yj, 71.36.+c, 89.75.Kd I. INTRODUCTION A central concept in the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems is the so-called pattern formation phenomenon, where a spatially ordered structure appears in an other- wise homogeneous system when this is driven far from thermodynamical equilibrium1. Very important exam- ples of pattern formation are found in the transverse dynamics of nonlinear optical systems2,3, e.g. lasers, bistable devices, as well as planar optical parametric os- cillators (OPOs). In OPOs, the pattern formation phenomenon mani- fests itself as the appearance of two additional coherent beams, called the signal and the idler, originating from nonlinear conversion of the pump beam when its inten- sity is brought beyond a threshold value4. An interesting point of view on OPO operation is provided by the anal- ogy with the Bose-Einstein condensation phenomenon of equilibrium statistical mechanics5: as it happens for the matter Bose field in the condensate mode when the tem- perature is lowered below the condensation temperature, the population of the signal/idler modes