Phononic collective excitations in superfluid Fermi gases at nonzero temperatures

We study the phononic collective modes of the pairing field and their corresponding signature in both the order-parameter and density response functions for a superfluid Fermi gas at all temperatures below Tc in the collisionless regime. The spectra of collective modes are calculated within the Gaussian pair fluctuation approximation. We deal with the coupling of these modes to the fermionic continuum of quasiparticle-quasihole excitations by performing a nonperturbative analytic continuation of the pairing field propagator. At low temperature, we recover the known exponential temperature dependence of the damping rate and velocity shift of the Anderson-Bogoliubov branch. In the vicinity of Tc, we find analytically a weakly damped collective mode whose velocity vanishes with a critical exponent of 1/2, and whose quality factor diverges logarithmically with Tc−T, thereby clarifying an existing debate in the literature [Andrianov and Popov, Theor. Math. Phys. 28, 829 (1976); Ohashi and Takada, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 66, 2437 (1997)]. A transition between these two phononic branches is visible at intermediary temperatures, particularly in the BCS limit where the phase-phase response function displays two maxima.

Jaar van publicatie:2019

Trefwoorden:A1 Journal article

Toegankelijkheid:Open