Emergence of multiple Higgs modes due to spontaneous breakdown of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry in a superconductor

Abstract

We study the Higgs mode in a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductor. Motivated by the observation that U(1) symmetry of the BCS Hamiltonian is not essential for the Higgs mode, we study the Ising-like Hamiltonian in the pseudospin representation. We show that the Higgs mode emerges as the lowest excited state of the Ising-like Hamiltonian due to spontaneous breakdown of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry under the time-reversal operation $\mathcal T$ in the pseudospin space. We further predict the existence of multiple Higgs modes that have quantized energy $2(n+1)\Delta_0$ ($0\le n\le N_{k_F}$), where $\Delta_0$ is the superconducting gap, $n$ is an integer, and $N_{k_F}$ is the number of states on the Fermi surface.