No Arabic abstract
Recent angle-resolved photoemission electron spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments demonstrate that the momentum dependence of the spectral gap in underdoped cuprates does not follow a pure $d$-wave form [H. Anzai et a., Nat. Comm. {bf 4}, 1815 (2013)]. This deviation is highly controversial. It has often been interpretated as a proof of the non-superconducting origin of the antinodal gap in the underdoped regime. In this article, we show that the measured angular dependence of the spectral gap can be explained by the basic nature of pairs in high-T$_c$ cuprates. Hole pairs, or {it pairons}, form as a result of the local antiferromagnetic environment on the scale $xi_{AF}$, the magnetic coherence length. The spatial extension of the pairon wavefunction beyond first nearest neighbours gives rise to the anomalous angular dependence of the gap, in quantitative agreement with experiments. This simple interpretation strongly indicates a common origin of the nodal and antinodal gaps.
We study the superconducting state of the hole-doped two-dimensional Hubbard model using Cellular Dynamical Mean Field Theory, with the Lanczos method as impurity solver. In the under-doped regime, we find a natural decomposition of the one-particle (photoemission) energy-gap into two components. The gap in the nodal regions, stemming from the anomalous self-energy, decreases with decreasing doping. The antinodal gap has an additional contribution from the normal component of the self-energy, inherited from the normal-state pseudogap, and it increases as the Mott insulating phase is approached.
In order to understand the material dependence of $T_c$ within the single-layered cuprates, we study a two-orbital model that considers both $d_{x^2-y^2}$ and $d_{z^2}$ orbitals. We reveal that a hybridization of $d_{z^2}$ on the Fermi surface substantially affects $T_c$ in the cuprates, where the energy difference $Delta E$ between the $d_{x^2-y2}$ and $d_{z^2}$ orbitals is identified to be the key parameter that governs both the hybridization and the shape of the Fermi surface. A smaller $Delta E$ tends to suppress $T_c$ through a larger hybridization, whose effect supersedes the effect of diamond-shaped (better-nested) Fermi surface. The mechanism of the suppression of d-wave superconductivity due to $d_{z^2}$ orbital mixture is clarified from the viewpoint of the ingredients involved in the Eliashberg equation, i.e., the Greens functions and the form of the pairing interaction described in the orbital representation. The conclusion remains qualitatively the same if we take a three-orbital model that incorporates Cu 4s orbital explicitly, where the 4s orbital is shown to have an important effect of making the Fermi surface rounded. We have then identified the origin of the material and lattice-structure dependence of $Delta E$, which is shown to be determined by the energy difference $Delta E_d$ between the two Cu3d orbitals (primarily governed by the apical oxygen height), and the energy difference $Delta E_p$ between the in-plane and apical oxygens (primarily governed by the interlayer separation $d$).
Conventional superconductors are characterized by a single energy scale, the superconducting gap, which is proportional to the critical temperature Tc . In hole-doped high-Tc copper oxide superconductors, previous experiments have established the existence of two distinct energy scales for doping levels below the optimal one. The origin and significance of these two scales are largely unexplained, although they have often been viewed as evidence for two gaps, possibly of distinct physical origins. By measuring the temperature dependence of the electronic Raman response of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d (Bi-2212) and HgBa2CuO4+d (Hg-1201) crystals with different doping levels, we establish that these two scales are associated with coherent excitations of the superconducting state which disappears at Tc. Using a simple model, we show that these two scales do not require the existence of two gaps. Rather, a single d-wave superconducting gap with a loss of Bogoliubov quasiparticle spectral weight in the antinodal region is shown to reconcile spectroscopic and transport measurements.
Superconductivity in FeSe has recently attracted a great deal of attention because it emerges out of an electronic nematic state of elusive character. Here we study both the electronic normal state and the superconducting gap structure using heat-capacity measurements on high-quality single crystals. The specific-heat curve, from 0.4 K to Tc = 9.1 K, is found to be consistent with a recent gap determination using Bogoliubov quasiparticle interference [P. O. Sprau et al., Science 357, 75 (2017)], however only if nodes are introduced on either the electron or the hole Fermi-surface sheets. Our analysis, which is consistent with quantum-oscillation measurements, relies on the presence of only two bands, and thus the fate of the theoretically predicted second electron pocket remains mysterious.
Both electronic Raman scattering (ERS) and angle-resolved photoemission spectra (ARPES) revealed two energy scales for the gap in different momentum spaces in the cuprates. However, the interpretations were different, and the gap values were also different in two experiments. In order to clarify the origin of these discrepancies, we directly compared ERS and ARPES by calculating ERS from the experimental data of ARPES through the Kubo formula. The calculated ERS spectra were in good agreement with the experimental results except for the B$_{1g}$ peak energies. The doping-dependent B$_{2g}$ peak energy was well reproduced from a doping-independent d-wave gap deduced from ARPES, by assuming a particular spectral weight distribution along the Fermi surface. The B$_{1g}$ peak energies could not be reproduced by the ARPES data. The difference between B$_{1g}$ ERS and antinodal ARPES became larger with underdoping, which implies that the effect of the pseudogap is different in these two techniques.