Exciton interaction potential in polar crystals

The problem whether polaron effects can lead to a repulsive barrier in the exciton interaction potential is reinvestigated, because this effect is crucial for the possibility of a Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons (rather than of excitonic molecules). The energy for two excitons is calculated accurately as a function of their mean distance in the case of a heavy hole mass by using an integral expansion method of molecular physics. The resulting interaction potential shows for certain polaron radii a very weak repulsive barrier. Taking into account corrections to the Haken potential which have been introduced by Pollmann and Büttner, it is shown that the interaction potential between two excitons in the relative singlet state is always attractive, so that the exciton system is also in polar materials unstable against exciton molecule formation.This is a project of the Sonderforschungsbereich Frankfurt/Darmstadt, financed by special funds of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft