Mechanistic principles of exciton-polariton relaxation

Quantum Physics arXiv:2601.09068 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 14 Jan 2026] Title:Mechanistic principles of exciton-polariton relaxation Authors:Ian Haines, Arshath Manjalingal, Logan Blackham, Saeed Rahamanian Koshkaki, Arkajit Mandal View a PDF of the paper titled Mechanistic principles of exciton-polariton relaxation, by Ian Haines and 4 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Exciton-polaritons are light-matter hybrid quasi-particles that have emerged as a flexible platform for developing quantum technologies and engineering material properties. However, the fundamental mechanistic principles that govern their dynamics and relaxation remain elusive. In this work, we provide the microscopic mechanistic understanding of the exciton-polariton relaxation process that follows from an excitation in the upper polariton. Using both mixed quantum-classical simulations and analytical analysis, we reveal that phonon-induced upper-to-lower polariton relaxation proceeds via two steps: the first step is a vertical inter-band transition from the upper to the lower polariton, which is followed by a second step that is a phonon-induced Fröhlich scattering within the lower polariton. We find that in materials of finite thickness (which include filled cavities), phonon-induced polaritonic intraband Fröhlich scattering is significantly suppressed. We show that the microscopic origin of this suppression is phonon-fluctuations synchronization (or self-averaging) due to the polaritonic spatial delocalization in the quantization direction. Finally, we show that the same phonon fluctuation-synchronization effect plays a central role across polaritonic relaxation pathways, and we derive simple analytical expressions that relate a material's finite thickness to the corresponding relaxation rate constants. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) Cite as: arXiv:2601.09068 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2601.09068v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.09068 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Arkajit Mandal [view email] [v1] Wed, 14 Jan 2026 01:44:52 UTC (1,285 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Mechanistic principles of exciton-polariton relaxation, by Ian Haines and 4 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-01 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.mtrl-sci References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)