Higgs Oscillations in a Unitary Fermi Superfluid

Year: 2024

Authors: Dyke P., Musolino S., Kurkjian H., Ahmed-Braun DJM., Pennings A., Herrera I., Hoinka S., Kokkelmans SJJMF., Colussi VE., Vale CJ.

Autors Affiliation: Swinburne Univ Technol, Opt Sci Ctr, ARC Ctr Excellence Future Low Energy Elect Technol, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia; Univ Cote Dazur, CNRS, Inst Phys Nice, F-06100 Nice, France; Univ Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, Lab Phys Theor, Toulouse, France; Eindhoven Univ Technol, POB 513, NL-5600 MB Eindhoven, Netherlands; Univ Trento, Pitaevskii BEC Ctr, CNR INO, I-38123 Trento, Italy; Univ Trento, Dipartimento Fis, I-38123 Trento, Italy; Infleqtion Inc, 3030 Sterling Circle, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; CSIRO, Res Way, Clayton, VIC 3168, Australia.

Abstract: Symmetry -breaking phase transitions are central to our understanding of states of matter. When a continuous symmetry is spontaneously broken, new excitations appear that are tied to fluctuations of the order parameter. In superconductors and fermionic superfluids, the phase and amplitude can fluctuate independently, giving rise to two distinct collective branches. However, amplitude fluctuations are difficult to both generate and measure, as they do not couple directly to the density of fermions and have only been observed indirectly to date. Here, we excite amplitude oscillations in an atomic Fermi gas with resonant interactions by an interaction quench. Exploiting the sensitivity of Bragg spectroscopy to the amplitude of the order parameter, we measure the time -resolved response of the atom cloud, directly revealing amplitude oscillations at twice the frequency of the gap. The magnitude of the oscillatory response shows a strong temperature dependence, and the oscillations appear to decay faster than predicted by time -dependent Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory applied to our experimental setup.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Volume: 132 (22)      Pages from: 223402-1  to: 223402-7

More Information: We thank Y. Castin, F. Dalfovo, M. Davis, N. Navon, C. Sa de Melo, S. Stringari, and M. Zwierlein for valuable discussions and comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Future Low-Energy ELectronics Technologies. V. C. acknowledges financial support from Provincia Autonoma di Trento, the Italian MIUR under the PRIN2017 project CEnTraL and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF PHY-1748958. S. M. acknowledges funding from the ANR-21-CE47-0009 Quantum-SOPHA project. D. J. M. A. -B. and S. J. J. M. F. K. acknowledge financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (EZK) , as part of the Quantum Delta NL program, and by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under Grants No. 680.92.18.05 and No. 680.47.623.
KeyWords: Mode; Excitations; Decay; Bec
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.223402

Citations: 4
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