Higgs-like Excitations of Cold Atom System with Spin-orbit Coupling

Abstract

The Higgs-like excitations, which distinguish from the Higgs amplitude mode in many-body system, are single-particle excitations in system with non-Abelian gauge potential. We investigate the Higgs-like excitations of cold atom system in artificial non-Abelian gauge potential. We demonstrate that when a non-Abelian gauge potential is reduced to Abelian potential, its Abelian part constructs spin-orbit coupling, and its non-Abelian part emerges Higgs-like excitations. The Higgs-like excitations induce a mass of the non-Abelian gauge field, which offsets the defect of massless of the gauge theories. We show that the mass of gauge field can affect the spin Hall currents which are produced by the spin-orbit coupling. We also discuss the observation of these phenomena in real experiment.