Vortex Bundles in a new form of superfluid light

A new form of superfluidity, taking place in the presence of vortex bundles, has recently been discovered in fluids made of light. In a recent study published in PRL, researchers from the "Quantum Collective Dynamics in Light Matter Systems" led by Prof. M. Szymanska in UCL, found strong evidence for a novel unconventional quantum phase. Such a phase can be created in quantum fluids of light -- a state of matter, where the elementary particle is the result of combining light and electrons inside a semiconductor. It has been shown earlier that this system is a superfluid, a particular quantum fluid that flows without friction. Dr. Paolo Comaron, a co-author of this research, adds: "Standard superfluidity can exist only in the absence of vortices with the exception of tightly bound vortex pairs. The system considered in this work, instead, exhibits a new type of superfluid phase that survives the presence of bundles of many vortices. The explanation of this phenomenon relies on the multi-component nature of this fluid, and how these components interact." 

Dagvadorj, G., P. Comaron, and M. H. Szymańska. "Unconventional Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless Transition in the Multicomponent Polariton System." Physical Review Letters 130.13 (2023): 136001. DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.136001