This article discusses fluctuating order in a quantum disordered phase proximate to a quantum critical point, with particular emphasis on fluctuating stripe order. Optimal strategies are derived for extracting information concerning such local order from experiments, with emphasis on neutron scattering and scanning tunneling microscopy. These ideas are tested by application to two model systems---an exactly solvable one-dimensional (1D) electron gas with an impurity, and a weakly interacting 2D electron gas. Experiments on the cuprate high-temperature superconductors which can be analyzed using these strategies are extensively reviewed. The authors adduce evidence that stripe correlations are widespread in the cuprates. They compare and contrast the advantages of two limiting perspectives on the high-temperature superconductor: weak coupling, in which correlation effects are treated as a perturbation on an underlying metallic (although renormalized) Fermi-liquid state, and strong coupling, in which the magnetism is associated with well-defined localized spins, and stripes are viewed as a form of micro phase separation. The authors present quantitative indicators that the latter view better accounts for the observed stripe phenomena in the cuprates.

How to detect fluctuating stripes in the high-temperature superconductors

https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:331186/fulltext.pdf

A survey of the Van Hove scenario for high-tc superconductivity with special emphasis on pseudogaps and striped phases

Recent transport experiments in the original cuprate high temperature superconductor, La2−xBaxCuO4, have revealed a remarkable sequence of transitions and crossovers that give rise to a form of dynamical dimensional reduction, in which a bulk crystal becomes essentially superconducting in two directions while it remains poorly metallic in the third. We identify these phenomena as arising from a distinct new superconducting state, the 'striped superconductor', in which the superconducting order is spatially modulated, so that its volume average value is zero. Here, in addition to outlining the salient experimental findings, we sketch the order parameter theory of the state, stressing some of the ways in which a striped superconductor differs fundamentally from an ordinary (uniform) superconductor, especially concerning its response to quenched randomness. We also present the results of density matrix renormalization group calculations on a model of interacting electrons in which sign oscillations of the superconducting order are established. Finally, we speculate concerning the relevance of this state to experiments in other cuprates, including recent optical studies of La2−xSrxCuO4 in a magnetic field, neutron scattering experiments in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x and a host of anomalies seen in STM and ARPES studies of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/11/11/115004/pdf

Striped superconductors: how spin, charge and superconducting orders intertwine in the cuprates

To explore the doping dependence of the recently discovered charge-density-wave (CDW) order in YBa2Cu3Oy, we present a bulk-sensitive high-energy x-ray study for several oxygen concentrations, including strongly underdoped YBa2Cu3O6.44. Combined with previous data around the so-called 1/8 doping, we show that bulk CDW order exists at least for hole concentrations (p) in the CuO2 planes of 0.078 less than or similar to p less than or similar to 0.132. This implies that CDW order exists in close vicinity to the quantum critical point for spin-density-wave (SDW) order. In contrast to the pseudogap temperature T*, the onset temperature of CDW order decreases with underdoping to T-CDW similar to 90 K in YBa2Cu3O6.44. Together with a weakened order parameter this suggests a competition between CDW and SDW orders. In addition, the CDW order in YBa2Cu3O6.44 shows the same type of competition with superconductivity as a function of temperature and magnetic field as samples closer to p = 1/8. At low p the CDW incommensurability continues the previously reported linear increasing trend with underdoping. In the entire doping range the in-plane correlation length of the CDW order in b axis direction depends only very weakly on the hole concentration, and appears independent of the type and correlation length of the oxygen-chain order. The onset temperature of the CDW order is remarkably close to a temperature T-dagger that marks the maximum of 1/(T1T) in planar Cu-63 NQR/NMR experiments, potentially indicating a response of the spin dynamics to the formation of the CDW. Our discussion of these findings includes a detailed comparison to the charge stripe order in La2-xBaxCuO4.

/pdf/competing-charge-spin-and-superconducting-orders-in-8z6uygf3vp.pdf

Competing charge, spin, and superconducting orders in underdoped YBa2Cu3Oy

Recent quantum oscillation measurements on underdoped cuprates are shown to be consistent with the predictions of a mean field theory of the $1∕8$ magnetic antiphase stripe order proposed to occur in high-${T}_{c}$ cuprates. In particular, for intermediate values of the stripe order parameter, the magnetotransport is found to be dominated by an electron pocket, whose size is sensitive to the value of the density wave potential.

K. Kumagai

Papers

Transport and magnetic anomalies at the structural transition to the new low temperature phase in La2−xBaxCuO4

Thermal conductivity of high-Tc oxides

Thermal conductivity due to magnons in high-quality single crystals of the two-leg spin-ladder system (Ca,Sr,La)14Cu24O41