Compiled by John Swain, Northeastern University
http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/58925
It is well known that superconductors display a mechanism similar to the Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism in the Standard Model, and now a condensed-matter analogue of the Higgs boson itself has been found. Ryusuke Matsunaga of the University of Tokyo and colleagues showed that strong terahertz light can produce oscillations in the superconducting order parameter in NbN at twice the frequency of the driving light. These oscillations, which correspond to a collective precession of Philip Anderson’s pseudospins, are the analogue of the Standard Model Higgs boson. They are detected via a large third-harmonic signal, which is generated from a quadratic coupling between the Higgs mode and the exciting field. The work also points to nonlinear quantum optics in superconductors, and could help in understanding exotic superconductors.
Further reading
R Matsunaga et al. 2014 Science 345 1145.
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