Excitonic quasi-condensation in a mass-asymmetric electron-hole biwire

Abstract

We study a mass-asymmetric one-dimensional electron-hole biwire system at zero temperature using the diffusion quantum Monte Carlo method. We characterize electron-hole pairing and long-distance pair coherence through the pair correlation function and the projected two-body density matrix over a broad range of carrier densities $r_{\mathrm{s}}$ and interwire separations $d$. We identify distinct correlation regimes ranging from a weakly correlated two-component electron-hole plasma to a quasi-condensate excitonic regime and a strongly correlated Wigner-like regime. To understand long-distance pair coherence, we analyze the algebraic decay of the projected two-body density matrix and extract the corresponding power-law exponent $\alpha$ which is less than 2. Strong electron-hole Coulomb correlations allow quasi-excitonic coherence to persist to high densities, down to effective $r_{\mathrm{s}}=0.3$ a.u.\ in addition to low densities. For a representative parameter set, we further find that mass asymmetry suppresses long-distance pair coherence while enhancing short-range electron-hole pairing. Our results provide a microscopic characterization of competing pairing and spatial ordering correlations in mass-asymmetric one-dimensional electron-hole systems.