  Photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy has revealed a novel, highly
efficient two-photon excitation method to produce a cold, uniformly distributed
high density excitonic gas in bulk cuprous oxide. A study of the time evolution
of the density, temperature and chemical potential of the exciton gas shows
that the so called quantum saturation effect that prevents Bose-Einstein
condensation of the ortho-exciton gas originates from an unfavorable ratio
between the cooling and recombination rates. Oscillations observed in the
temporal decay of the ortho-excitonic luminescence intensity are discussed in
terms of polaritonic beating. We present the semiclassical description of
polaritonic oscillations in linear and non-linear optical processes.
