  The excitation spectrum around the pump-only stationary state of a polariton
optical parametric oscillator (OPO) in semiconductor microcavities is
investigated by time-resolved photoluminescence. The response to a weak pulsed
perturbation in the vicinity of the idler mode is directly related to the
lifetime of the elementary excitations. A dramatic increase of the lifetime is
observed for a pump intensity approaching and exceeding the OPO threshold. The
observations can be explained in terms of a critical slowing down of the
dynamics upon approaching the threshold and the following onset of the soft
Goldstone mode.
