No Arabic abstract
We theoretically investigate twisted structures where each layer is composed of a strongly correlated material. In particular, we study a twisted t-J model of cuprate multilayers within the slave-boson mean field theory. This treatment encompasses the Mott physics at small doping and self consistently generates d-wave pairing. Furthermore, including the correct inter-layer tunneling form factor consistent with the symmetry of the Cu $d_{x^2-y^2}$ orbital proves to be crucial for the phase diagram. We find spontaneous time reversal (T) breaking around twist angle of $45^circ$, although only in a narrow window of twist angles. Moreover, the gap obtained is small and the Chern number vanishes, implying a non-topological superconductor. At smaller twist angles, driving an interlayer current however can lead to a gapped topological phase. The energy-phase relation of the interlayer Josephson junction displays notable double-Cooper-pair tunneling which dominates around $45^o$. The twist angle dependence of the Josephson critical current and the Shapiro steps are consistent with recent experiments. Utilizing the moire structure as a probe of correlation physics, in particular of the pair density wave state, is discussed.
A central question in the high temperature cuprate superconductors is the fate of the parent Mott insulator upon charge doping. Here we use scanning tunneling microscopy to investigate the local electronic structure of lightly doped cuprate in the antiferromagnetic insulating regime. We show that the doped charge induces a spectral weight transfer from the high energy Hubbard bands to the low energy in-gap states. With increasing doping, a V-shaped density of state suppression occurs at the Fermi level, which is accompanied by the emergence of checkerboard charge order. The new STM perspective revealed here is the cuprates first become a charge ordered insulator upon doping. Subsequently, with further doping, Fermi surface and high temperature superconductivity grow out of it.
The two-dimensional t-J model on a frustrating lattice is studied using mean-field variational theories with Gutzwiller approximation. We find that a superconducting state with broken time-reversal symmetry (d+id state) is realized in the parameter region close to the triangular lattice. The frustration enlarges the region of superconductivity when $t<0$ for the hole-doped case, which is equivalent to $t>0$ for electron doping. We also discuss the SU(2) degeneracy at half-filling. The d+id state probably corresponds to the spin gap state at half-filling.
Because the cuprate superconductors are doped Mott insulators, it would be advantageous to solve even a toy model that exhibits both Mottness and superconductivity. We consider the Hatsugai-Kohmoto model, an exactly solvable system that is a prototypical Mott insulator above a critical interaction strength at half filling. Upon doping or reducing the interaction strength, our exact calculations show that the system becomes a non-Fermi liquid metal with a superconducting instability. In the presence of a weak pairing interaction, the instability produces a thermal transition to a superconducting phase, which is distinct from the BCS state, as evidenced by a gap-to-transition temperature ratio exceeding the universal BCS limit. The elementary excitations of this superconductor are not Bogoliubov quasiparticles but rather superpositions of doublons and holons, composite excitations signaling that the superconducting ground state of the doped Mott insulator inherits the non-Fermi liquid character of the normal state. An unexpected feature of this model is that it exhibits a superconductivity-induced transfer of spectral weight from high to low energies as seen in the cuprates as well as a suppression of the superfluid density relative to that in BCS theory.
We present a systematic study of spin dynamics in a superconducting ground state, which itself is a doped-Mott-insulator and can correctly reduce to an antiferromagnetic (AF) state at half-filling with an AF long-range order (AFLRO). Such a doped Mott insulator is described by a mean-field theory based on the phase string formulation of the t-J model. We show that the spin wave excitation in the AFLRO state at half-filling evolves into a resonancelike peak at a finite energy in the superconducting state, which is located around the AF wave vectors. The width of such a resonancelike peak in momentum space decides a spin correlation length scale which is inversely proportional to the square root of doping concentration, while the energy of the resonancelike peak scales linearly with the doping concentration at low doping. An important prediction of the theory is that, while the total spin sum rule is satisfied at different doping concentrations, the weight of the resonancelike peak does not vanish, but is continuously saturated to the weight of the AFLRO at zero-doping limit. Besides the low-energy resonancelike peak, we also show that the high-energy excitations still track the spin wave dispersion in momentum space, contributing to a significant portion of the total spin sum rule. The fluctuational effect beyond the mean-field theory is also examined, which is related to the broadening of the resonancelike peak in energy space. In particular, we discuss the incommensurability of the spin dynamics by pointing out that its visibility is strongly tied to the low-energy fluctuations below the resonancelike peak. We finally investigate the interlayer coupling effect on the spin dynamics as a function of doping, by considering a bilayer system.
We study the three-band Hubbard model for the copper oxide plane of the high-temperature superconducting cuprates using determinant quantum Monte Carlo and the dynamical cluster approximation (DCA) and provide a comprehensive view of the pairing correlations in this model using these methods. Specifically, we compute the pair-field susceptibility and study its dependence on temperature, doping, interaction strength, and charge-transfer energy. Using the DCA, we also solve the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the two-particle Greens function in the particle-particle channel to determine the transition temperature to the superconducting phase on smaller clusters. Our calculations reproduce many aspects of the cuprate phase diagram and indicate that there is an optimal value of the charge-transfer energy for the model where $T_c$ is largest. These results have implications for our understanding of superconductivity in both the cuprates and other doped charge-transfer insulators.