No Arabic abstract
The pseudogap phase of high-$T_c$ cuprates is controversially attributed to preformed pairs or to a phase which coexists and competes with superconductivity. One of the challenges is to develop theoretical and experimental studies in order to distinguish between both proposals. Very recently, researchers at Stanford have reported [M. Hashimoto {it et al.}, Nat. Phys. {bf 6}, 414 (2010); R.-H. He {it et al.}, Science {bf 331}, 1579 (2011)] angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments on Pb-Bi2201 supporting the point of view that the pseudogap is distinct from superconductivity and associated to a spacial symmetry breaking without long-range order. In this paper we show that many features reported by these experiments can be described in the framework of the t-J model considering self-energy effects in the proximity to a d charge-density-wave instability.
We present a model for the combined nematic and `smectic or stripe-like orders seen in recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments in cuprates. We model the stripe order as an electronic charge density wave with associated Peierls distortion -- a `Pomeranchuk wave. Disorder restricts this primary order to nanoscale domains, while secondary coupling to strain generates nematic order with considerably longer range.
The cuprate high temperature superconductors develop spontaneous charge density wave (CDW) order below a temperature $T_{CDW}$ and over a wide range of hole doping (p). An outstanding challenge in the field is to understand whether this modulated phase is related to the more exhaustively studied pseudogap and superconducting phases. To address this issue it is important to extract the energy scale $Delta_{CDW}$ associated with the charge modulations, and to compare it with the pseudogap (PG) $Delta_{PG}$ and the superconducting gap $Delta_{SC}$. However, while $T_{CDW}$ is well-characterized from earlier works little has been known about $Delta_{CDW}$ until now. Here, we report the extraction of $Delta_{CDW}$ for several cuprates using electronic Raman spectroscopy. Crucially, we find that, upon approaching the parent Mott state by lowering $p$, $Delta_{CDW}$ increases in a manner similar to the doping dependence of $Delta_{PG}$ and $Delta_{SC}$. This shows that CDW is an unconventional order, and that the above three phases are controlled by the same electronic correlations. In addition, we find that $Delta_{CDW} approx Delta_{SC}$ over a substantial doping range, which is suggestive of an approximate emergent symmetry connecting the charge modulated phase with superconductivity.
Charge-density-wave (CDW) correlations within the quintessential CuO$_2$ planes have been argued to either cause [1] or compete with [2] the superconductivity in the cuprates, and they might furthermore drive the Fermi-surface reconstruction in high magnetic fields implied by quantum oscillation (QO) experiments for YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+{delta}}$ (YBCO) [3] and HgBa$_2$CuO$_{4+{delta}}$ (Hg1201) [4]. Consequently, the observation of bulk CDW order in YBCO was a significant development [5,6,7]. Hg1201 features particularly high structural symmetry and recently has been demonstrated to exhibit Fermi-liquid charge transport in the relevant temperature-doping range of the phase diagram, whereas for YBCO and other cuprates this underlying property of the CuO$_2$ planes is partially or fully masked [8-10]. It therefore is imperative to establish if the pristine transport behavior of Hg1201 is compatible with CDW order. Here we investigate Hg1201 ($T_c$ = 72 K) via bulk Cu L-edge resonant X-ray scattering. We indeed observe CDW correlations in the absence of a magnetic field, although the correlations and competition with superconductivity are weaker than in YBCO. Interestingly, at the measured hole-doping level, both the short-range CDW and Fermi-liquid transport appear below the same temperature of about 200 K. Our result points to a unifying picture in which the CDW formation is preceded at the higher pseudogap temperature by $q$ = 0 magnetic order [11,12] and the build-up of significant dynamic antiferromagnetic correlations [13]. Furthermore, the smaller CDW modulation wave vector observed for Hg1201 is consistent with the larger electron pocket implied by both QO [4] and Hall-effect [14] measurements, which suggests that CDW correlations are indeed responsible for the low-temperature QO phenomenon.
Pair density waves, identified by Cooper pairs with finite center-of-mass momentum, have recently been observed in copper oxide based high T$_textrm{c}$ superconductors (cuprates). A charge density modulation or wave is also ubiquitously found in underdoped cuprates. Within a general mean-field one-band model we show that the coexistence of charge density waves and uniform superconductivity in $d$-wave superconductors like cuprates, generates an odd-frequency spin-singlet pair density wave, in addition to the even-frequency counterparts. The strength of the induced odd-frequency pair density wave depends on the modulation wave vector of the charge density wave, with the odd-frequency pair density waves even becoming comparable to the even-frequency ones in parts of the Brillouin zone. We show that a change in the modulation wave vector of the charge density wave from bi-axial to uni-axial, can enhance the odd-frequency component of the pair density waves. Such a coexistence of superconductivity and uni-axial charge density wave has already been experimentally verified at high magnetic fields in underdoped cuprates. We further discuss the possibility of an odd-frequency spin-triplet pair density wave generated in the coexistence regime of superconductivity and spin density waves, applicable to the iron-based superconductors. Our work thus presents a route to bulk odd-frequency superconductivity in high T$_c$ superconductors.
The resonating valence bond spin liquid model for the underdoped cuprates has as an essential element, the emergence of a pseudogap. This new energy scale introduces asymmetry in the quasiparticle density of states because it is associated with the antiferromagnetic Brillouin zone. By contrast, superconductivity develops on the Fermi surface and this largely restores the particle-hole symmetry for energies below the superconducting energy gap scale. In the highly underdoped regime, these two scales can be separately identified in the density of states and also partial density of states for each fixed angle in the Brillouin zone. From the total density of states, we find that the pseudogap energy scale manifests itself differently as a function of doping for positive and negative bias. Furthermore, we find evidence from recent scanning tunneling spectroscopy data for asymmetry in the positive and negative bias of the extracted $Delta(theta)$ which is in qualitative agreement with this model. Likewise, the slope of the linear low energy density of states is nearly constant in the underdoped regime while it increases significantly with overdoping in agreement with the data.