Mass hierarchy in collective modes of pair-density-wave superconductors

TL;DR

This paper investigates the collective excitations in pair-density-wave superconductors near quantum criticality, revealing emergent mass hierarchies among modes that could inform the hierarchy problem in particle physics.

Contribution

It demonstrates how incommensurate and commensurate PDW superconductors exhibit distinct collective mode behaviors, including an exponentially small Higgs mass and a mass hierarchy, using functional renormalization.

Findings

Gapless Leggett mode can induce an exponentially small Higgs mass.

Emergent mass hierarchy among collective modes in commensurate PDW.

Insights into hierarchy problem mechanisms in the Standard Model.

Abstract

We study collective modes near the quantum critical point of a pair-density-wave (PDW) superconductor in 2+1 dimensions. The fate of gaps of various collective modes is investigated by functional renormalization. For incommensurate PDW superconductors, we show that the gapless Leggett mode, protected by the emergent $U(1)$ symmetry, can induce an exponentially small Higgs mass compared to the superconducting gap. Further, for commensurate PDW superconductors, we find an emergent mass hierarchy in the collective modes, i.e. the masses of Leggett boson, Higgs boson, and the superconducting gap can differ by several magnitudes in the infrared. This may shed light to a mechanism underlying the hierarchy problem in the Standard Model of particle physics.