Paper detail

Supercurrent induced resonant optical response

The optical conductivity encodes the current response to a time dependent electric field. We develop a theory of the optical conductivity $σ(ω)$ in presence of a dc supercurrent. Current induced optical response is prohibited by Galilean invariance from occurring in systems with a single parabolic band. However, we show that lattice effects give rise to a pronounced current dependent peak in $σ(ω)$ at the gap edge $ω= 2 Δ$, which diverges in the clean limit. We demonstrate this in a model of a multi-band superconductor. Our theory explains the recent observation of a current induced peak in the optical conductivity in NbN by Nakamura et al. (2019), and provides a new mechanism for direct activation of the Higgs mode with light.