Influence of interactions with noncondensed particles on the coherence of a one-dimensional polariton condensate

One-dimensional polariton condensates (PoCos) in a photonic wire are generated through nonresonant laser excitation, by which also a reservoir of background carriers is created. Interaction with this reservoir may affect the coherence of the PoCo, which is studied here by injecting a condensate locally and monitoring the coherence along the wire. While the incoherent reservoir is mostly present within the excitation laser spot, the condensate can propagate ballistically through the wire. Photon correlation measurements show that far from the laser spot the second-order correlation function approaches unity value, as expected for the coherent condensed state. When approaching the spot, however, the correlation function increases up to values of 1.2 showing the addition of noise to the emission due to interaction with the reservoir. This finding is substantiated by measuring the first-order coherence by a double-slit experiment, which shows a reduced visibility of interference at the excitation laser spot.