Orbital order from the on-site orbital attraction

We study the model of Fe-based superconductors with intraorbital attraction, designed to favor a spontaneous orbital polarization. Previous studies of this model within the two-orbital approximation indicated that the leading instability is toward s-wave superconductivity and the subleading one is toward anti-ferro-orbital order, which breaks the translational symmetry of the crystal. The two-orbital approximation is, however, not consistent with the Fermi surface geometry of Fe superconductors, as it yields the wrong position of one of the hole pockets. Here we analyze the model with the same interaction but with realistic Fermi surface geometry (two hole pockets at the center of the Brillouin zone and two electron pockets at its boundary). We apply the parquet renormalization-group (pRG) technique to detect the leading instability upon the lowering of the temperature. We argue that the pRG analysis strongly favors a q = 0 orbital order, which in the band basis is a d-wave Pomeranchuk order.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Non-fermi liquid behavior in itinerant antiferromagnets

We consider a two dimensional itinerant antiferromagnet near a quantum critical point. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, fermionic excitations in the ordered state are not the usual Fermi liquid quasiparticles. Instead, down to very low frequencies, the fermionic self energy varies as $\omega^{2/3}$. This non-Fermi liquid behavior originates in the coupling of fermions to the longitudinal spin susceptibility $\chi_{\parallel}(q, \Omega)$ in which the order-induced ``gap'' in the spectrum at $q=0$ dissolves into the Landau damping term at $v_F q >\Omega$. The transverse spin fluctuations obey $z=1$ scaling characteristic of spin waves, but remain overdamped in a finite range near the critical point.Comment: 5p., 3fig

Spin-liquid model of the sharp resistivity drop in La1.85Ba0.125CuO4La_{1.85}Ba_{0.125}CuO_4

We use the phenomenological model proposed in our previous paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 98}, 237001 (2007)] to analyse the magnetic field dependence of the onset temperature for two-dimensional fluctuating superconductivity $T^{**} (H)$. We demonstrate that the slope of $T^{**} (H)$ progressively goes down as $H$ increases, such that the upper critical field progressively increases as $T$ decreases. The quantitative agreement with the recent measurements of $T^{**} (H)$ in $La_{1.85}Ba_{0.125}CuO_4$ is achieved for the same parameter value as was derived in our previous publication from the analysis of the electron self energy.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Luttinger theorem for a spin-density-wave state

We obtained the analog of the Luttinger relation for a commensurate spin-density-wave state. We show that while the relation between the area of the occupied states and the density of particles gets modified in a simple and predictable way when the system becomes ordered, a perturbative consideration of the Luttinger theorem does not work due to the presence of an anomaly similar to the chiral anomaly in quantum electrodynamics.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 1 figure embedded in the text, ps-file is also available at http://lifshitz.physics.wisc.edu/www/morr/morr_homepage.htm

Composite charge order in the pseudogap region of the cuprates

We study the Ginzburg-Landau free energy functional for two coupled U(1) charge order parameters describing two non-equivalent charge orders with wave vector ${\bf Q}$ detected in X-ray and STM measurements of underdoped cuprates. We do not rely on a mean-field analysis, but rather utilize a field-theoretical technique suitable to study the interplay between vortex physics and discrete symmetry breaking in two-dimensional systems with U(1) symmetry. Our calculations support the idea that in the clean systems there are two transitions: from a high temperature disordered state into a state with a composite charge order which breaks time-reversal symmetry, but leaves U(1) fields disordered, and then into a state with quasi long range order in the U(1) fields.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure; the version to appear in Phys. Rev. B, typos remove

Dispersion Anomalies in Cuprate Superconductors

We argue that the shape of the dispersion along the nodal and antinodal directions in the cuprates can be understood as a consequence of the interaction of the electrons with collective spin excitations. In the normal state, the dispersion displays a crossover at an energy where the decay into spin fluctuations becomes relevant. In the superconducting state, the antinodal dispersion is strongly affected by the spin resonance and displays an S-shape whose magnitude scales with the resonance intensity. For nodal fermions, relevant spin excitations do not have resonance behavior, rather they are better characterized as a gapped continuum. As a consequence, the S-shape becomes a kink, and superconductivity does not affect the dispersion as strongly. Finally, we note that optical phonons typically lead to a temperature independent S-shape, in disagreement with the observed dispersion.Comment: 12 pages, 7 eps figure

On the confinement of spinons in the CPM−1CP^{M-1} model

We use the $1/M$ expansion for the $CP^{M-1}$ model to study the long-distance behaviour of the staggered spin susceptibility in the commensurate, two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnet at finite temperature. At $M=\infty$ this model possesses deconfined spin-1/2 bosonic spinons (Schwinger bosons), and the susceptibility has a branch cut along the imaginary $k$ axis. We show that in all three scaling regimes at finite $T$, the interaction between spinons and gauge field fluctuations leads to divergent $1/M$ corrections near the branch cut. We identify the most divergent corrections to the susceptibility at each order in $1/M$ and explicitly show that the full static staggered susceptibility has a number of simple poles rather than a branch cut. We compare our results with the $1/N$ expansion for the $O(N)$ sigma-model.Comment: 27 pages, REVtex file, 4 figures (now in a uuencoded, gziped file). The figures are also available upon request