Collective branch in the continuum of BCS superconductors and superfluid Fermi gases

We demonstrate the existence of a collective excitation branch in the pair-breaking continuum of superfluid Fermi gases and BCS superconductors, as suggested by Littlewood and Varma in 1982. We analytically continue the RPA equation on the collective mode energy through its branch cut associated with the continuum, and obtain the full complex dispersion relation, including in the strong coupling regime. For ∆/μ > 1.210 (very close to unitarity in a superfluid Fermi gas), where ∆ is the order parameter and μ the chemical potential, the real part of the branch is wholly within the band gap [0, 2∆]. In the long wavelength limit, the branch varies quadratically with the wave number, with a complex effective mass that we compute analytically. This contradicts the result of Littlewood and Varma that prevailed so far.

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