The ultrafast (picosecond) coherent dynamics of exciton systems in semiconductors can be approximately described by bosonic mean-field equations. These equations are nonlinear and therefore difficult to solve analytically. It is thus important to study the general dynamical properties of these equations, such as the underlying symmetry and corresponding conservation laws. It is shown in this paper that, for an $N$-species exciton system (e.g., heavy-hole and light-hole excitons), a mean-field Hamiltonian (including the coupling to external fields and fermionic corrections) can be formulated which is a member of the $su(N,N)$ algebra. As a consequence, the equations of motion for the center-of-mass momentum dependent exciton distribution and the coherent biexciton amplitude can be cast into a form similar to that of the optical Bloch vector in two-level atoms that belong to the algebra $su\left(2\right)$ [or, more generally, $N$-level atoms with algebra $su\left(N\right)$]. It is shown that the analog to the Bloch sphere in $N$-level atoms is an unbounded hypersurface (generalized hyperboloid) that constrains the motion of the exciton distribution and coherent biexciton amplitude. Further constants of motions that constrain the motion on the hypersurface are found from an $su(N,N)$ generalization to the Hioe-Eberly method in $su\left(N\right)$ systems ($N$-level atoms) [F. Hioe and J. Eberly, Phys. Rev. Lett. 47, 838 (1981)].

• Received 21 March 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.70.195319