Superfluidity of coherent light in self-focusing nonlinear waveguides

We establish the superfluidity theory of coherent light in waveguides made of nonlinear polar crystals.It is found that the pairing state of photons in a nonlinear polar crystal is the photonic superfluid state.The photon-photon interaction potential is an attractive effective interaction by exchange of virtual optical phonons.In the traveling-wave pairing state of photons,the photon number is conserved,which is similar to the Bose-Einstein condensation(BEC) state of photons.In analogy to the BCS-BEC crossover theory of superconductivity,we derive a set of coupled order parameter and number equations,which determine the solution of the traveling-wave superfluid state of photons.This solution gives the critical velocity of light in a self-focusing nonlinear waveguide.The most important property of the photonic superfluid state is that the system of photon pairs evolves without scattering attenuations.