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arXiv:2407.12645 · Physical Review Research

Hybridization of the amplitude mode in a confined fermionic superfluid

Cesar R. Cabrera, René Henke, Lukas Broers, Jim Skulte, H. P. Ojeda Collado, Hauke Biss, Ludwig Mathey, Henning Moritz

Published May 29, 2025• 5 citations

Abstract

In phase transitions, spontaneous symmetry breaking results in a nonzero order parameter and two collective excitations: the Goldstone and the amplitude mode. These modes, which define key properties of superconductors and fermionic superfluids, are well understood in homogeneous systems. However, their behavior under strong confinement remains largely unexplored, particularly when their excitation energy becomes comparable to the imposed discrete level spacing. In this scenario, hybridization between different collective modes is expected to take place. Here, we show how the amplitude mode hybridizes with a spatial mode in a confined fermionic superfluid. Using lattice modulation spectroscopy, we observe the evolution of the mode throughout the entire crossover from the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) state to Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of molecules. In the BCS regime, the excitation energy is located at twice the pairing gap, then gradually becomes an in-gap excitation in the strongly correlated regime. Further to the BEC limit, the excitation energy approaches twice the level spacing. The spectral weight of this mode vanishes when approaching the superfluid critical temperature. Our experimental results are in excellent agreement with an effective field theory, providing strong evidence that amplitude oscillations hybridize with and eventually transform into breathing oscillations of the order parameter. The strong modification of the excitation spectrum reveals how confinement and finite-size effects impact fundamental modes of symmetry-broken states.

DOI: 10.1103/5cv2-f4ng

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Bragg spectroscopy shows the evolution of gapless Goldstone modes and single-particle-like excitations in an atomic Fermi superfluid as it crosses from a Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer superfluid to the Bose–Einstein condensate regime. Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a central paradigm of elementary particle physics1, magnetism2, superfluidity3 and superconductivity4. According to Goldstone’s theorem, phase transitions that break continuous symmetries lead to the existence of gapless excitations in the long-wavelength limit5. These Goldstone modes can become the dominant low-energy excitation, showing that symmetry breaking has a profound impact on the physical properties of matter. Here, we present a comprehensive study of the elementary excitations in a homogeneous strongly interacting Fermi gas through the crossover from a Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) of molecules using two-photon Bragg spectroscopy. The spectra exhibit a discrete Goldstone mode, associated with the broken-symmetry superfluid phase, as well as pair-breaking single-particle excitations. Our techniques yield a direct determination of the superfluid pairing gap and speed of sound in close agreement with strong-coupling theories.

Ultracold atomic gases are a powerful tool to experimentally study strongly correlated quantum many-body systems. In particular, ultracold Fermi gases with tunable interactions have allowed to realize the famous BEC-BCS crossover from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of molecules to a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid of weakly bound Cooper pairs. However, large parts of the excitation spectrum of fermionic superfluids in the BEC-BCS crossover are still unexplored. In this work, we use Bragg spectroscopy to measure the full momentum-resolved low-energy excitation spectrum of strongly interacting ultracold Fermi gases. This enables us to directly observe the smooth transformation from a bosonic to a fermionic superfluid that takes place in the BEC-BCS crossover. We also use our spectra to determine the evolution of the superfluid gap and find excellent agreement with previous experiments and self-consistent T-matrix calculations both in the BEC and crossover regime. However, toward the BCS regime a calculation that includes the effects of particle-hole correlations shows better agreement with our data.

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.

In quantum many-body systems with spontaneous breaking of continuous symmetries, Higgs modes emerge as collective amplitude oscillations of order parameters. Recently, Higgs mode has been observed in the ultracold Fermi gas. In the present paper, we use the time-dependent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations to investigate Higgs amplitude oscillations of the superfluid order parameter in a Fermi gas induced by a rapid change of the

{\it s}

-wave scattering length. In particular, we investigate the Higgs mode with different values of the initial scattering length. We find that the energy of the Higgs mode coincides with the threshold energy of the pair-breaking excitation, and exponent of the power-low decay of the Higgs mode

γ

continuously changes between

γ=-1/2

and

γ=-3/2

through the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer-Bose-Einstein condensation (BCS-BEC) crossover. Moreover, we propose the optimal ramp speed of the scattering length for observing the clearest Higgs oscillations.

We investigate the dynamical behavior of large-amplitude collective modes in a superfluid Fermi gas in the crossover from Bardeen--Cooper--Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid to Bose--Einstein condensate (BEC) based on a hydrodynamic approach. We first solve the superfluid hydrodynamic equations that describe the time evolution of fermionic condensates in the BCS-BEC crossover and calculate explicitly the frequency shifts of the collective modes induced by nonlinear effects using the Lindstedt--Poincar\'e method. The result shows that the frequency shifts display different features in different superfluid regimes. We then study the second-harmonic generation of the collective modes under a phase-matching condition, which can be fulfilled by choosing appropriate parameters of the system. The analytical results obtained are checked by numerical simulations and good agreement is found.

Using the coarse-grain averaged hydrodynamic approach, we calculate all low energy transverse excitation spectrum of a rotating Fermi superfluid containing vortex lattices for all regimes along the Bose-Einstein condensate--Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BEC-BCS) crossover. In the fast rotating regime, the molecular BEC enters into the lowest Landau level, but the superfluid in the unitarity and the BCS regimes occupies many low-lying Landau levels. The difference between the breathing mode frequencies at the BEC and unitarity limit shrinks to zero as the rotation speed approaches the radial trap frequency, in contrast to the finite difference in the nonrotating systems.