This is just messing with us right? Star trek level technobabble?
Just kidding, seems an exciting result, even if it flies way over my head.
- Supersolid: it's a state of matter when a system is both organised like a solid but presents superfluid-like flow without viscosity.
- Driven-dissipative: it's a qualifier for systems which are dissipative (excitations of the systems dissipate energy as heat) and driven by external fields (in this case strong electromagnetic fields are keeping the supersolid in shape). In physics, "driven" usually refers to an external influx of energy or force kept on the system.
- non-equilibrium system is what we call systems where the physics cannot be fully described by a statistical analysis of the whole over long times. These systems have transitory behaviours which are often complex before they return to equilibrium (unless they are driven away from it).
Exciton-polariton: excitons and polaritons are what we call quasiparticles. They're not particles in the sense of an electron or photon, but instead they are excitations of the collective system which look like particles. Kind of like how waves on the ocean aren't one water molecule, but a bunch of them. An exciton has no charge (it's essentially an electron and a missing electron stuck together). When an exciton couples to electromagnetic waves (photons), it can make a special type of polariton (another quasiparticle) which we call an exciton-polariton.
- Photonic = made of photons
This is hard for me to grasp. For example, if it bumps hard into a hard solid surface, does it shear like, say, bent metal? Or is it itself 'hard' / rigid - if that is a reasonable descriptor for something at such small scales - itself, and - despite being able to flow, with no friction, smoothly - still remain 'locked in shape' at a structural level? My real question I guess is how does a collision work here?