Low-Lying Collective Excitations of Superconductors and Charged Superfluids

TL;DR

This paper theoretically analyzes low-lying collective excitations in superconductors and charged superfluids across the BCS-BEC crossover, revealing new excitation branches at strong coupling with distinct momentum and temperature behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a nonperturbative Gaussian fluctuation method to identify new collective excitation branches in the strong coupling regime, extending previous studies focused on the BCS limit.

Findings

New excitation branches emerge at strong coupling.

Excitations show distinct momentum dependence.

Behavior varies with temperature.

Abstract

We investigate theoretically the momentum-dependent frequency and damping of low-lying collective excitations of superconductors and charged superfluids in the BCS-BEC crossover regime. The study is based on the Gaussian pair-and-density fluctuation method for the propagator of Gaussian fluctuations of the pair and density fields. Eigenfrequencies and damping rates are determined in a mutually consistent nonperturbative way as complex poles of the fluctuation propagator. Particular attention is paid to new features with respect to preceding theoretical studies, which were devoted to collective excitations of superconductors in the far BCS regime. We find that at a sufficiently strong coupling, new branches of collective excitations appear, which manifest different behavior as functions of the momentum and the temperature.