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Superconducting (SC) fluctuations in cuprate superconductors have been extensively studied to gain a deep insight into preformed Cooper pairs above the SC transition temperature $T_{\text{c}}$. While the various measurements, such as the terahertz (THz) optical conductivity, Nernst effect, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements have provided the signature of the SC fluctuations, the onset temperature of the SC fluctuations depends on the measurement scheme. Here, we shed light on the Higgs mode to investigate the SC fluctuations, as it is the direct fingerprint of SC order parameter and can help elucidate the development of SC phase coherence. We perform THz pump-optical probe spectroscopy for underdoped and overdoped Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+x}$ (Bi2212) thin films. The oscillatory behavior in the pump-probe signal (THz Kerr signal) observed in the SC phase has been identified as the Higgs mode in single crystals in our previous work [K. Katsumi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 117001 (2018)], but two onset temperatures are identified above $T_{\text{c}}$. Combined with the results of the single crystals in a wide range of doping, we find that the first onset $T_1^{\text{ons}}$ is 10-30 K above $T_{\text{c}}$. $T_1^{\text{ons}}$ coincides with that of the superfluid density $N_s$ extracted from the THz optical conductivity. Hence, $T_1^{\text{ons}}$ is interpreted as the onset of macroscopic SC phase stiffness. On the other hand, the second onset $T_2^{\text{ons}}$ is identified at substantially higher than $T_{\text{c}}$, whose origin is discussed in terms of preformed Cooper pairs., Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures

In high energy physics, the Higgs field couples to gauge bosons and fermions and gives mass to their elementary excitations. Experimentally, such couplings can be inferred from the decay product of the Higgs boson, i.e. the scalar (amplitude) excitation of the Higgs field. In superconductors, Cooper pairs bear a close analogy to the Higgs field. Interaction between the Cooper pairs and other degrees of freedom provides dissipation channel for the amplitude mode, which may reveal important information about the microscopic pairing mechanism. To this end, we investigate the Higgs (amplitude) mode of several cuprate thin films using phase-resolved terahertz third harmonic generation (THG). In addition to the heavily damped Higgs mode itself, we observe a universal jump in the phase of the driven Higgs oscillation as well as a non-vanishing THG above Tc. These findings indicate coupling of the Higgs mode to other collective modes and potentially a nonzero pairing amplitude above Tc., Comment: 35 pages, 20 figues

In this letter we show that the soft behaviour of photons and graviton amplitudes, after projection, can be determined to infinite order in soft expansion via ordinary on-shell gauge invariance. In particular, as one of the particle's momenta becomes soft, gauge invariance relates the non-singular diagrams of an n-point amplitude to that of the singular ones up to possible homogeneous terms. We demonstrate that with a particular projection of the soft-limit, the homogeneous terms do not contribute, and one arrives at an infinite soft theorem. This reproduces the result recently derived from the Ward identity of large gauge transformations. We also discuss the modification of these soft theorems due to the presence of higher-dimensional operators.

Double-soft theorems, like its single-soft counterparts, arises from the underlying symmetry principles that constrain the interactions of massless particles. While single soft theorems can be derived in a non-perturbative fashion by employing current algebras, recent attempts of extending such an approach to known double soft theorems has been met with difficulties. In this work, we have traced the difficulty to two inequivalent expansion schemes, depending on whether the soft limit is taken asymmetrically or symmetrically, which we denote as type A and B respectively. We show that soft-behaviour for type A scheme can simply be derived from single soft theorems, and are thus non-preturbatively protected. For type B, the information of the four-point vertex is required to determine the corresponding soft theorems, and thus are in general not protected. This argument can be readily extended to general multi-soft theorems. We also ask whether unitarity can be emergent from locality together with the two kinds of soft theorems, which has not been fully investigated before., Comment: 45 pages, 7 figures

Soft behaviours of S-matrix for massless theories reflect the underlying symmetry principle that enforces its masslessness. As an expansion in soft momenta, sub-leading soft theorems can arise either due to (I) unique structure of the fundamental vertex or (II) presence of enhanced broken-symmetries. While the former is expected to be modified by infrared or ultraviolet divergences, the latter should remain exact to all orders in perturbation theory. Using current algebra, we clarify such distinction for spontaneously broken (super) Poincar\'e and (super) conformal symmetry. We compute the UV divergences of DBI, conformal DBI, and A-V theory to verify the exactness of type (II) soft theorems, while type (I) are shown to be broken and the soft-modifying higher-dimensional operators are identified. As further evidence for the exactness of type (II) soft theorems, we consider the alpha' expansion of both super and bosonic open strings amplitudes, and verify the validity of the translation symmetry breaking soft-theorems up to O(alpha'^6). Thus the massless S-matrix of string theory "knows" about the presence of D-branes., Comment: 35 pages. Additional mathematica note book with the UV-divergenece of the 6-point amplitude in AV/KS theory