Two-dimensional wannier excitons. Effects of a random adiabatic potential

We investigate the absorption spectrum and the distribution of radiative decay times for two-dimensional excitons in semiconductor quantum wells, as affected by an adiabatic white-noise random potential. Such a potential could result from atomic-scale fluctuations in the composition of an alloy semiconductor, or in quantum well thickness. We find in general that the shortest radiative decay time is directly proportional to the inhomogeneous width of the exciton line in absorption, itself proportional to the correlation parameter for the random potential.