Collective excitations of a bound-in-the-continuum condensate

Abstract

Spectra of low-lying elementary excitations are critical to characterize properties of bosonic quantum fluids. Usually these spectra are difficult to observe, due to low occupation of non-condensate states compared to the ground state. Recently, low-threshold Bose-Einstein condensation was realised in a symmetry-protected bound state in the continuum, at a saddle point, thanks to coupling of this electromagnetic resonance to semiconductor excitons. While it has opened the door to long-living polariton condensates, their intrinsic collective properties are still unexplored. Here we unveil the peculiar features of the Bogoliubov spectrum of excitations in this system. Thanks to the dark nature of the bound-in-the-continuum state, collective excitations lying directly above the condensate become observable in enhanced detail. We reveal interesting aspects, such as energy-flat parts of the dispersion characterized by two parallel stripes in photoluminescence pattern, pronounced linearization at non-zero momenta in one of the directions, and a strongly anisotropic velocity of sound.