Theory of Anderson pseudospin resonance with Higgs mode in superconductors

Abstract

A superconductor illuminated by an ac electric field with frequency \(\Omega\) is theoretically found to generate a collective precession of Anderson's pseudospins, and hence a coherent amplitude oscillation of the order parameter, with a doubled frequency \(2\Omega\) through a nonlinear light-matter coupling. We provide a fundamental theory, based on the mean-field formalism, to show that the induced pseudospin precession resonates with the Higgs amplitude mode of the superconductor at \(2\Omega=2\Delta\) with \(2\Delta\) being the superconducting gap. The resonant precession is accompanied by a divergent enhancement of the third-harmonic generation (THG). By decomposing the THG susceptibility into the bare one and vertex correction, we find that the enhancement of the THG cannot be explained by individual quasiparticle excitations (pair breaking), so that the THG serves as a smoking gun for an identification of the collective Higgs mode. We further explore the effect of electron-electron scattering on the pseudospin resonance by applying the nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory to the attractive Hubbard model driven by ac electric fields. The result indicates that the pseudospin resonance is robust against electron correlations, although the resonance width is broadened due to electron scattering, which determines the lifetime of the Higgs mode.