In a recent experiment, the excitation spectrum of spin-orbit (SO) coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of ^87\rmRb atoms was studied by using Bragg spectroscopy, and the roton-maxon structure was found to exist in the excitation spectrum of magnetized phase. In addition, the roton-mode and its softening phenomenon are obtained by using various artificial SO couplings such as Rashba SO coupling and spin-orbital-angular-momentum coupling. However, the SO coupling strength in previous studies could not be controlled in real time, which limits the further study and precise regulation of the excitation spectrum of condensate. Thus, it is still an important topic to study how to regulate the SO coupling strength of the system through an external driving field, and further regulate the excitation spectrum of SO coupled BECs.

In this work, the excitation spectrum of a tunable SO coupled BECs in free space is studied by using Bogoliubov theory. The time-independent effective Floquet Hamiltonian with two-body interaction is obtained in the high frequency approximation, and then a tunable SO coupling and an effective two-body interaction that can be regulated by the periodic driving of Raman coupling are obtained. Based on the effective Floquet Hamiltonian of the system, the dispersion relation of the BECs with interactions is numerically calculated. It is found that the periodic driving can effectively regulate the structure of the dispersion relation, which indicates that the periodic driving can regulate the phase transition between the zero-momentum phase and the plane wave phase. Then, the Bogoliubov-de-Gennes (BdG) equation of the system is obtained by using Bogoliubov theory. Moreover, the excitation spectrum of the BECs in the zero momentum phase and the plane wave phase are studied, respectively. Only the phonon excitation exists in the excitation spectrum of the zero momentum phase, and the excitation spectrum behaves as a Bessel function with the increase of the periodic driving strength. The phonon and roton excitations exist in the excitation spectrum of the plane wave phase, and the roton mode gradually softens with the increase of periodically driving strength. Therefore, the phonon and roton excitations in the excitation spectrum of SO coupled BECs can be regulated in real time by periodically driving Raman coupling.