Abstract

Since the seminal paper by Kardar, Parisi and Zhang (KPZ) in 1986 on kinetic roughening of classical growing interfaces, the KPZ equation has arisen as a fundamental model in statistical physics for non-equilibrium scaling phenomena and phase transitions. Unexpectedly, it still unfolds new branching, such as a connection with the phase dynamics of open quantum systems displaying macroscopic spontaneous coherence.

In this talk, I will first give an overview of the realm of the KPZ equation. I will then focus on exciton-polaritons. These are hybrid quasi-particles emerging in semiconductor optical cavities from the strong coupling between electronic excitations in a quantum well and cavity photons. They behave collectively as a quantum fluid, featuring a Bose-Einstein condensation, which is genuinely out-of-equilibrium because of its driven-dissipative nature. I will explore the connection between the exciton-polariton condensate and the KPZ universality, and show that it extends well beyond the mere KPZ critical exponents. I will present results from both numerical simulations and a recent experiment.

1. Fontaine et al, Nature 608, 687 (2022)

2. Deligiannis, D. Squizzato, A. Minguzzi, LC, EPL 132, 67004 (2021)

3. Squizzato, LC, A. Minguzzi, PRB 97, 195453 (2018)

4. Deligiannis et al, PRR 4, 043207 (2022)

Date & Location

The event will be taking place online on the 09th of February at 10:00 CET.

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