No Arabic abstract
The symmetry operations of the crystal groups relevant for the high temperature superconductors HgBa2CuO4+x (Hg1201), YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO), and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x (BSCCO) are elucidated. The allowable combinations of the superconducting order parameter (OP) components are presented for both the angular momentum and lattice representations. For tetragonal Hg1201, the spin singlet OP components are composed from four sets of compatible basis functions, which combine to give the generalized s-, dx2-y2-, dxy-, and gxy(x2-y2)- wave OPs. In YBCO, elements of s- and dx2-y2- wave sets are compatible, but in BSCCO, elements of s- and dxy- wave sets are compatible. The Josephson critical current density JcJ across c-axis twist junctions in the vicinity of Tc is then evaluated as a function of the twist angle phi0, for each allowable OP combination, for both coherent and incoherent tunneling. Recent experiments of Li et al. demonstrated the independence of JcJ(phi0)/JcS upon phi0 at and below Tc, where JcS is the critical current density of a constituent single crystal. These experiments are shown to be consistent with an OP containing an s-wave component, but inconsistent with an OP containing the purported dx2-y2-wave component. In addition, they demonstrate that the interlayer tunneling across untwisted layers in single crystal BSCCO is entirely incoherent. We propose a new type of tricrystal experiment using single crystal c-axis twist junctions, that does not employ substrate grain boundaries.
A model of charged hole-pair bosons, with long range Coulomb interactions and very weak interlayer coupling, is used to calculate the order parameter -Phi- of underdoped cuprates. Model parameters are extracted from experimental superfluid densities and plasma frequencies. The temperature dependence -Phi(T)- is characterized by a trapezoidal shape. At low temperatures, it declines slowly due to harmonic phase fluctuations which are suppressed by anisotropic plasma gaps. Above the single layer Berezinski-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) temperature, Phi(T) falls rapidly toward the three dimensional transition temperature. The theoretical curves are compared to c-axis superfluid density data by H. Kitano et al., (J. Low Temp. Phys. 117, 1241 (1999)) and to the -transverse nodal velocity- measured by angular resolved photoemmission spectra on BSCCO samples by W.S. Lee et al., (Nature 450, 81 (2007)), and by A. Kanigel, et al., (Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 157001 (2007)).
The presence of different electronic orders other than superconductivity populating the phase diagram of cuprates suggests that they might be the key to disclose the mysteries of this class of materials. In particular charge order in the form of charge density waves (CDW), i.e., the incommensurate modulation of electron density in the CuO$_2$ planes, is ubiquitous across different families and presents a clear interplay with superconductivity. Until recently, CDW had been found to be confined inside a rather small region of the phase diagram, below the pseudogap temperature and the optimal doping. This occurrence might shed doubts on the possibility that such low temperature phenomenon actually rules the properties of cuprates either in the normal or in the superconducting states. However, recent resonant X-ray scattering (RXS) experiments are overturning this paradigm. It results that very short-ranged charge modulations permeate a much wider region of the phase diagram, coexisting with CDW at lower temperatures and persisting up to temperatures well above the pseudogap opening. Here we review the characteristics of these high temperature charge modulations, which are present in several cuprate families, with similarities and differences. A particular emphasis is put on their dynamical character and on their coupling to lattice and magnetic excitations, properties that can be determined with high resolution resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS).
We show that the asymmetric tunneling spectrum observed in the cuprate superconductors stems from the existence of a competing order. The competition between the competing order and superconductivity can create a charge depletion region near the surface. The asymmetric response of the depletion region as the function of the external voltage causes the asymmetric tunneling spectrum. The effect is very general in a system which is near the phase boundary of two competing states favoring different carrier densities. The asymmetry which has recently been observed in the point-contact spectroscopy of the heavy fermion superconductor CeCoIn5 is another example of this effect.
The competing orders in the particle-particle (P-P) channel and the particle-hole (P-H) channel have been proposed separately to explain the pseudogap physics in cuprates. By solving the Bogoliubov-deGennes equation self-consistently, we show that there is a general complementary connection between the d-wave checkerboard order (DWCB) in the particle-hole (P-H) channel and the pair density wave order (PDW) in the particle-particle (P-P) channel. A small pair density localization generates DWCB and PDW orders simultaneously. The result suggests that suppressing superconductivity locally or globally through phase fluctuation should induce both orders in underdoped cuprates. The presence of both DWCB and PDW orders with $4a times 4a$ periodicity can explain the checkerboard modulation observed in FT-STS from STM and the puzzling dichotomy between the nodal and antinodal regions as well as the characteristic features such as non-dispersive Fermi arc in the pseudogap state.
It was previously suggested that an odd-frequency pair amplitude exists in the vicinity of boundaries in unconventional superconductors. We develop this idea and quest for a novel superconducting order parameter with an odd-frequency dependence. For this purpose, we focus on p-wave superconductors and extend the quasi-classical theory to include the odd-frequency dependence in the order parameter. Both of the frequency and spacial dependences of the order parameter are determined self-consistently. Under a finite electron-phonon interaction, it is found that an odd-frequency order parameter is stabilized near the boundary and coexists with the even-frequency one. By analyzing the induced odd-frequency pair amplitude in terms of the superconducting quasi-particle wavefunction, it is found that the mid-gap bound state generates the emergent odd-frequency order parameter.