Interplay between polarization and quantum correlations of confined polaritons

Abstract: We investigate polariton quantum correlations in a coherently driven box cavity in the low driving regime, with a particular focus on accounting for the polarization degree of freedom. The possibility of having different interaction strengths between co- and cross-circularly polarized polaritons as well as a realistic linear-polarization splitting allows one to model the system as two coupled nonlinear resonators with both self- and cross-Kerr-like nonlinearities, thus making our results potentially relevant for other experimental platforms. Within an effective wave-function approach, we obtain analytical expressions for the steady-state polarization-resolved polariton populations and second-order correlation functions, which agree very well with our numerical results obtained from a Lindblad master equation. Notably, we highlight that depending on the excitation polarization (circular or linear), both the unconventional (interference-mediated) and conventional (mediated by nonlinearities) antibunchings can be investigated in a single cavity. Moreover, using our results, we argue that recent experiments on confined fiber-cavity polaritons are likely to have probed a regime where the dominant interaction is between cross-polarized polaritons, which is characteristic of the polariton Feshbach resonance. We furthermore investigate the regime close to resonance using a two-channel model, and we show that systems with large biexciton binding energies, such as atomically thin semiconductors, are promising platforms for realizing strong polariton antibunching.