Experimental observation of Higgs oscillations and their power-law decay across pairing regimes in a cavity QED quantum simulator
Abstract
Understanding how pairing correlations in superconductors evolve out of equilibrium is a central challenge in quantum many-body physics. In systems with s-wave pairing, the character of Cooper pairing evolves continuously from a BCS regime of weakly bound, overlapping pairs to a BEC regime of tightly bound molecules, each with distinct excitation spectra. Here we realize and probe pairing dynamics across these regimes using cold, non-degenerate 87Rb atoms coupled to an optical cavity with Floquet dressing. Our cavity-QED platform emulates fermionic superfluids through a mapping onto Anderson pseudospins, while optical and microwave control tunes the ratio of interactions to single-particle energies, providing a flexible approach complementary to ultracold Feshbach and ultrafast solid-state platforms. Following a quench, we observe persistent pairing and transient oscillations of the order parameter associated with a collective amplitude (Higgs) mode. We find that the decay of these oscillations sharply distinguishes weak- and strong-pairing regimes: in the weak-pairing regime, oscillations decay with a power-law exponent |α|=0.65(8), whereas in the strong-pairing regime the decay is substantially faster, with |α|>1. The oscillation frequency is set by the minimum quasiparticle excitation energy, directly linking nonequilibrium dynamics to the underlying excitation spectrum. Our results establish nonequilibrium dynamics as a direct probe of pairing character and collective excitations in interacting quantum systems.
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BibTeX
@misc{maruko2026experimental,
title = {{Experimental observation of Higgs oscillations and their power-law decay across pairing regimes in a cavity QED quantum simulator}},
author = {Chitose Maruko and Haoqing Zhang and Eliot A. Bohr and Leah Huzjak and Anjun Chu and Victor Gurarie and Chengyi Luo and Ana Maria Rey and James K. Thompson},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.14171},
eprint = {2610.14171},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14171},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Experimental observation of Higgs oscillations and their power-law decay across pairing regimes in a cavity QED quantum simulator
AU - Chitose Maruko
AU - Haoqing Zhang
AU - Eliot A. Bohr
AU - Leah Huzjak
AU - Anjun Chu
AU - Victor Gurarie
AU - Chengyi Luo
AU - Ana Maria Rey
AU - James K. Thompson
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.14171
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14171
AB - Understanding how pairing correlations in superconductors evolve out of equilibrium is a central challenge in quantum many-body physics. In systems with s-wave pairing, the character of Cooper pairing evolves continuously from a BCS regime of weakly bound, overlapping pairs to a BEC regime of tightly bound molecules, each with distinct excitation spectra. Here we realize and probe pairing dynamics across these regimes using cold, non-degenerate ^87Rb atoms coupled to an optical cavity with Floquet dressing. Our cavity-QED platform emulates fermionic superfluids through a mapping onto Anderson pseudospins, while optical and microwave control tunes the ratio of interactions to single-particle energies, providing a flexible approach complementary to ultracold Feshbach and ultrafast solid-state platforms. Following a quench, we observe persistent pairing and transient oscillations of the order parameter associated with a collective amplitude (Higgs) mode. We find that the decay of these oscillations sharply distinguishes weak- and strong-pairing regimes: in the weak-pairing regime, oscillations decay with a power-law exponent |α|=0.65(8), whereas in the strong-pairing regime the decay is substantially faster, with |α|>1. The oscillation frequency is set by the minimum quasiparticle excitation energy, directly linking nonequilibrium dynamics to the underlying excitation spectrum. Our results establish nonequilibrium dynamics as a direct probe of pairing character and collective excitations in interacting quantum systems.
ER -