No Arabic abstract
Recent experiments in the cuprates have seen evidence of a transient superconducting state upon optical excitation polarized along the c-axis [R. Mankowsky et al., Nature 516, 71 (2014)]. Motivated by these experiments we propose an extension of the single-layer $t-J-V$ model of cuprates to three dimensions in order to study the effects of inter-plane tunneling on the competition between superconductivity and bond density wave order. We find that an optical pump can suppress the charge order and simultaneously enhance superconductivity, due to the inherent competition between the two. We also provide an intuitive picture of the physical mechanism underlying this effect. Furthermore, based on a simple Floquet theory we estimate the magnitude of the enhancement.
We present a comparative study of magnetic excitations in the first two Ruddlesden-Popper members of the Hg-family of high-temperature superconducting cuprates, which are chemically nearly identical and have the highest critical temperature ($T_mathrm{c}$) among all cuprate families. Our inelastic photon scattering experiments reveal that the two compounds paramagnon spectra are nearly identical apart from an energy scale factor of $sim130%$ that matches the ratio of $T_mathrm{c}$s, as expected in magnetic Cooper pairing theories. By relating our observations to other cuprates, we infer that the strength of magnetic interactions determines how high $T_mathrm{c}$ can reach. Our finding can be viewed as a magnetic analogue of the isotope effect, thus firmly supporting models of magnetically mediated high-temperature superconductivity.
Besides superconductivity, copper-oxide high temperature superconductors are susceptible to other types of ordering. We use scanning tunneling microscopy and resonant elastic x-ray scattering measurements to establish the formation of charge ordering in the high-temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x. Depending on the hole concentration, the charge ordering in this system occurs with the same period as those found in Y-based or La-based cuprates, and displays the analogous competition with superconductivity. These results indicate the similarity of charge organization competing with superconductivity across different families of cuprates. We observe this charge ordering to leave a distinct electron-hole asymmetric signature (and a broad resonance centered at +20 meV) in spectroscopic measurements, thereby indicating that it is likely related to the organization of holes in a doped Mott insulator.
The discovery of high temperature superconductivity in the cuprates in 1986 triggered a spectacular outpouring of creative and innovative scientific inquiry. Much has been learned over the ensuing 28 years about the novel forms of quantum matter that are exhibited in this strongly correlated electron system. This progress has been made possible by improvements in sample quality, coupled with the development and refinement of advanced experimental techniques. In part, avenues of inquiry have been motivated by theoretical developments, and in part new theoretical frameworks have been conceived to account for unanticipated experimental observations. An overall qualitative understanding of the nature of the superconducting state itself has been achieved, while profound unresolved issues have come into increasingly sharp focus concerning the astonishing complexity of the phase diagram, the unprecedented prominence of various forms of collective fluctuations, and the simplicity and insensitivity to material details of the normal state at elevated temperatures. New conceptual approaches, drawing from string theory, quantum information theory, and various numerically implemented approximate approaches to problems of strong correlations are being explored as ways to come to grips with this rich tableaux of interrelated phenomena.
We review application of the SU(4) model of strongly-correlated electrons to cuprate and iron-based superconductors. A minimal self-consistent generalization of BCS theory to incorporate antiferromagnetism on an equal footing with pairing and strong Coulomb repulsion is found to account systematically for the major features of high-temperature superconductivity, with microscopic details of the parent compounds entering only parametrically. This provides a systematic procedure to separate essential from peripheral, suggesting that many features exhibited by the high-$Ttsub c$ data set are of interest in their own right but are not central to the superconducting mechanism. More generally, we propose that the surprisingly broad range of conventional and unconventional superconducting and superfluid behavior observed across many fields of physics results from the systematic appearance of similar algebraic structures for the emergent effective Hamiltonians, even though the microscopic Hamiltonians of the corresponding parent states may differ radically from each other.
In the last two decades there have been tremendous attempts to built an adequate theory of high-temperature superconductivity. Most studies (including our efforts) used some model Hamiltonians with input parameters not directly related to the material. The dielectric response function of electrons in strongly correlated high-temperature superconductors is apriori unknown. Hence one has to start with the generic Hamiltonian including unscreened Coulomb and Froehlich electron-phonon interactions operating on the same scale since any ad-hoc assumption on their range and relative magnitude might fail. Using such a generic Hamiltonian I have built the analytical theory of high-temperature superconductivity in doped polar insulators predicting the critical temperature in excess of a hundred Kelvin without any adjustable parameters. The many-particle electron system is described by an analytically solvable polaronic t-Jp Hamiltonian with reduced hopping integral, t, allowed double on-site occupancy, large phonon-induced antiferromagnetic exchange, Jp >> t, and a high-temperature superconducting state of small superlight bipolarons protected from clustering.