Topological Higgs Amplitude Modes in a Strongly Interacting Superfluid

By studying the 2-dimensional Su-Schrieffer-Heeger-Bose-Hubbard model, we show the existence of topological Higgs amplitude modes in the superfluid phase. Using the slave boson approach, we find that, in the large filling limit, the Higgs excitations and the Goldstone excitations above the ground state are well decoupled, and both of them exhibit nontrivial topology inherited from the underlying noninteracting bands. At finite fillings, the Higgs modes and the Goldstone modes become coupled at high energy; nevertheless, the topology of these modes are unchanged. We further present an effective action analysis based on the strong-coupling random-phase approximation, which provides a universal physical picture for the topology of Higgs and Goldstone modes in various systems.