Eur. Phys. J. B 27, 505-516 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2002-00184-y

Commutation technique for interacting close-to-boson excitons

GPS, Université Denis Diderot and Université Pierre et Marie Curie, CNRS, Tour 23, 2 place Jussieu, 75251 Paris Cedex 05, France

Corresponding author: ^a combescot@gps.jussieu.fr

Received: 25 October 2001
Published online: 25 June 2002

Abstract

The correct treatment of the close-to-boson character of excitons is known to be a major problem. In a previous work, we have proposed a “commutation technique” to include this close-to-boson character in their interactions. We here extend this technique to excitons with spin degrees of freedom as they are of crucial importance for many physical effects. Although the exciton total angular momentum may appear rather appealing at first, we show that the electron and hole angular momenta are much more appropriate when dealing with scattering processes. As an application of this commutation technique to a specific problem, we reconsider a previous calculation of the exciton-exciton scattering rate and show that the proposed quantity is intrinsically incorrect for fundamental reasons linked to the fermionic nature of the excitons.