Phonon-induced modification of polaritonic Rabi oscillations in the presence of the dark excitonic condensate

Abstract

Optically inactive (dark) intervalley momentum-forbidden excitons are characterized by relatively long life time, and therefore are desirable candidates for realizing collective excitonic phases. However, testing their coherence by light directly is impossible. Here we propose a method for detecting a dark excitonic condensate. It relies on the interaction between excitons and phonons responsible for the interconversion between bright and dark excitons. As long as the dark condensate forms, the Rabi oscillations between photons and bright excitons can become strongly modified, and can be viewed as the photon-exciton-phonon polaritonic effect. The multi-component nature of the dark condensate consistent with the point-group symmetry is taken into account in the limit of weak phonon-exciton interaction. A perspective for the case of the strong interaction leading to the polaronic effect is discussed.