No Arabic abstract
Based on the mean-field method applied either to the extended single-band Hubbard model or to the single-band Peierls-Hubbard Hamiltonian we study the stability of both site-centered and bond-centered charge domain walls. The difference in energy between these phases is found to be small. Therefore, moderate perturbations to the pure Hubbard model, such as next nearest hopping, lattice anisotropy, or coupling to the lattice, induce phase transitions, shown in the corresponding phase diagrams. In addition, we determine for stable phases charge and magnetization densities, double occupancy, kinetic and magnetic energies, and investigate the role of a finite electron-lattice coupling. We also review experimental signatures of stripes in the superconducting copper oxides.
When matter undergoes a phase transition from one state to another, usually a change in symmetry is observed, as some of the symmetries exhibited are said to be spontaneously broken. The superconducting phase transition in the underdoped high-Tc superconductors is rather unusual, in that it is not a mean-field transition as other superconducting transitions are. Instead, it is observed that a pseudo-gap in the electronic excitation spectrum appears at temperatures T* higher than Tc, while phase coherence, and superconductivity, are established at Tc (Refs. 1, 2). One would then wish to understand if T* is just a crossover, controlled by fluctuations in order which will set in at the lower Tc (Refs. 3, 4), or whether some symmetry is spontaneously broken at T* (Refs. 5-10). Here, using angle-resolved photoemission with circularly polarized light, we find that, in the pseudogap state, left-circularly polarized photons give a different photocurrent than right-circularly polarized photons, and therefore the state below T* is rather unusual, in that it breaks time reversal symmetry11. This observation of a phase transition at T* provides the answer to a major mystery of the phase diagram of the cuprates. The appearance of the anomalies below T* must be related to the order parameter that sets in at this characteristic temperature .
Upon doping, Mott insulators often exhibit symmetry breaking where charge carriers and their spins organize into patterns known as stripes. For high-Tc superconducting cuprates, stripes are widely suspected to exist in a fluctuating form. Here, we use numerically exact determinant quantum Monte Carlo calculations to demonstrate dynamical stripe correlations in the three-band Hubbard model, which represents the local electronic structure of the Cu-O plane. Our results, which are robust to varying parameters, cluster size, and boundary condition, strongly support the interpretation of a variety of experimental observations in terms of the physics of fluctuating stripes, including the hourglass magnetic dispersion and the Yamada plot of incommensurability vs. doping. These findings provide a novel perspective on the intertwined orders emerging from the cuprates normal state.
I review the microscopic spin-orbital Hamiltonian and ground state properties of spin one-half spinel oxides with threefold $t_{2g}$ orbital degeneracy. It is shown that for any orbital configuration a ground state of corresponding spin only Hamiltonian is infinitely degenerate in the classical limit. The extensive classical degeneracy is lifted by the quantum nature of the spins, an effect similar to order-out-of-disorder phenomenon by quantum fluctuations. This drives the system to a non-magnetic spin-singlet dimer manifold with a residual degeneracy due to relative orientation of dimers. The magneto-elastic mechanism of lifting the ``orientational degeneracy is also briefly reviewed.
By re-examining recently-published data from angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy we demonstrate that, in the superconducting region of the phase diagram, the pseudogap ground state is an arc metal. This scenario is consistent with results from Raman spectroscopy, specific heat and NMR. In addition, we propose an explanation for the Fermi pockets inferred from quantum oscillations in terms of a pseudogapped bilayer Fermi surface.
Two-dimensional (2D) Van Hove singularities (VHSs) associated with the saddle points or extrema of the energy dispersion usually show logarithmic divergences in the density of states (DOS). However, recent studies find that the VHSs originating from higher-order saddle-points have faster-than-logarithmic divergences, which can amplify electron correlation effects and create exotic states such as supermetals in 2D materials. Here we report the existence of high-order VHSs in the cuprates and related high-Tc superconductors and show that the anomalous divergences in their spectra are driven by the electronic dimensionality of the system being lower than the dimensionality of the lattice. The order of VHS is found to correlate with the superconducting Tc such that materials with higher order VHSs display higher Tcs. We further show that the presence of the normal and higher-order VHSs in the electronic spectrum can provide a straightforward marker for identifying the propensity of a material toward correlated phases such as excitonic insulators or supermetals. Our study opens up a new materials playground for exploring the interplay between high-order VHSs, superconducting transition temperatures and electron correlation effects in the cuprates and related high-Tc superconductors.