Coulomb correlations and electron-hole liquid in double quantum wells

It has been shown that many-body Coulomb correlations in double quantum wells with spatially separated electrons and holes result in the formation of a degenerate electron-hole liquid where an average distance between the particles is smaller than the size of an isolated exciton. This state turns out to be energetically more favorable than the exciton gas. The results have been obtained under the assumption that there are many different sorts of electrons and holes in the system, which is the case, in particular, in multivalley semiconductors. The relation to the experiments on the observation of luminescent regions in such systems is discussed.