358 research outputs found
Cooperative localization-delocalization in the high Tc cuprates
The intrinsic metastable crystal structure of the cuprates results in local
dynamical lattice instabilities, strongly coupled to the density fluctuations
of the charge carriers. They acquire in this way simultaneously both,
delocalized and localized features. It is responsible for a partial fractioning
of the Fermi surface, i.e., the Fermi surface gets hidden in a region around
the anti-nodal points, because of the opening of a pseudogap in the normal
state, arising from a partial charge localization. The high energy localized
single-particle features are a result of a segregation of the homogeneous
crystal structure into checker-board local nano-size structures, which breaks
the local translational and rotational symmetry. The pairing in such a system
is dynamical rather than static, whereby charge carriers get momentarily
trapped into pairs in a deformable dynamically fluctuating ligand environment.
We conclude that the intrinsically heterogeneous structure of the cuprates must
play an important role in this type of superconductivity.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, Proceedings of the "International Conference on
Condensed Matter Theories", Quito, 2009 Int. J. Mod. Phys. B 2010 (Accepted
Probing Pseudogap by Josephson Tunneling
We propose here an experiment aimed to determine whether there are
superconducting pairing fluctuations in the pseudogap regime of the high-
materials. In the experimental setup, two samples above are brought into
contact at a single point and the differential AC conductivity in the presence
of a constant applied bias voltage between the samples, , should be
measured. We argue the the pairing fluctuations will produce randomly
fluctuating Josephson current with zero mean, however the current-current
correlator will have a characteristic frequency given by Josephson frequency
. We predict that the differential AC conductivity
should have a peak at the Josephson frequency with the width determined by the
phase fluctuations time.Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figure
Deformation of a nearly hemispherical conducting drop due to an electric field: theory and experiment
We consider, both theoretically and experimentally, the deformation due to an electric field of a pinned nearly-hemispherical static sessile drop of an ionic fluid with a high conductivity resting on the lower substrate of a parallel plate capacitor. Using both numerical and asymptotic approaches we find solutions to the coupled electrostatic and augmented Young–Laplace equations which agree very well with the experimental results. Our asymptotic solution for the drop interface extends previous work in two ways, namely to drops that have zero-field contact angles that are not exactly π/2 and to higher order in the applied electric field, and provides useful predictive equations for the changes in the height, contact angle and pressure as functions of the zero-field contact angle, drop radius, surface tension and applied electric field. The asymptotic solution requires some numerical computations, and so a surprisingly accurate approximate analytical asymptotic solution is also obtained
Transport properties of heterogeneous materials derived from Gaussian random fields: Bounds and Simulation
We investigate the effective conductivity () of a class of
amorphous media defined by the level-cut of a Gaussian random field. The three
point solid-solid correlation function is derived and utilised in the
evaluation of the Beran-Milton bounds. Simulations are used to calculate
for a variety of fields and volume fractions at several different
conductivity contrasts. Relatively large differences in are observed
between the Gaussian media and the identical overlapping sphere model used
previously as a `model' amorphous medium. In contrast shows little
variability between different Gaussian media.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figure
Phase Fluctuations and Pseudogap Properties: Influence of Nonmagnetic Impurities
The presence of nonmagnetic impurities in a 2D ``bad metal'' depresses the
superconducting Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature, while
leaving the pairing energy scale unchanged. Thus the region of the pseudogap
non-superconducting phase, where the modulus of the order parameter is non-zero
but its phase is random, and which opens at the pairing temperature is
substantially bigger than for the clean system. This supports the premise that
fluctuations in the phase of the order parameter can in principle describe the
pseudogap phenomena in high- materials over a rather wide range of
temperatures and carrier densities. The temperature dependence of the bare
superfluid density is also discussed.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, 1 EPS figure; final version to appear in
Low.Temp.Phy
The Density of States in High-Tc Superconductors Vortices
We calculated the electronic structure of a vortex in a pseudogapped
superconductor within a model featuring strong correlations. With increasing
strength of the correlations, the BCS core states are suppressed and the
spectra in and outside the core become similar. If the correlations are
short-range, we find new core states in agreement with the observations in
YBaCuO and BiSrCaCuO. Our results point to a common phenomenology for these two
systems and indicate that normal-state correlations survive below Tc without
taking part in the overall phase coherence.Comment: REVTeX 4, 5 pages, 2 EPS figures. Some changes to the text; new
figures; references update
Magnetic field induced charge and spin instabilities in cuprate superconductors
A d-wave superconductor, subject to strong phase fluctuations, is known to
suffer an antiferromagnetic instability closely related to the chiral symmetry
breaking in (2+1)-dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED3). On the basis of
this idea we formulate a "QED3 in a box" theory of local instabilities of a
d-wave superconductor in the vicinity of a single pinned vortex undergoing
quantum fluctuations around its equilibrium position. As a generic outcome we
find an incommensurate 2D spin density wave forming in the neighborhood of a
vortex with a concomitant "checkerboard" pattern in the local electronic
density of states, in agreement with recent neutron scattering and tunneling
spectroscopy measurements.Comment: 4 pages REVTeX + 2 PostScript figures included in text. Version to
appear in PRL (minor stylistic changes, references updated). For related work
and info visit http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~fran
Antiferromagnetism from phase disordering of a d-wave superconductor
The unbinding of vortex defects in the superconducting condensate with d-wave
symmetry at T=0 is shown to lead to the insulator with incommensurate
spin-density-wave order. The transition is similar to the spontaneous
generation of the "chiral" mass in the three dimensional quantum
electrodynamics, at which the global chiral symmetry one can define in the
superconducting state is spontaneously broken. Other symmetry related states
and possible relations to recent experiments on uderdoped cuprates are briefly
discussed.Comment: RevTex, 4 pages, one ps figure; comments on confinement in the SDW
added, references updated; final versio
Nernst Effect and Anomalous Transport in Cuprates: A Preformed-Pair Alternative to the Vortex Scenario
We address those puzzling experiments in underdoped high
superconductors which have been associated with normal state "vortices" and
show these data can be understood as deriving from preformed pairs with onset
temperature . For uncorrelated bosons in small magnetic fields, and
arbitrary , we present the exact contribution to \textit{all}
transport coefficients. In the overdoped regime our results reduce to those of
standard fluctuation theories (). Semi-quantitative agreement
with Nernst, ac conductivity and diamagnetic measurements is quite reasonable.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures; Title, abstract and contents modified, new
references added, figures changed, one more figure added; to be published on
PR
Anomalous Proximity Effect in Underdoped YBaCuO Josephson Junctions
Josephson junctions were photogenerated in underdoped thin films of the
YBaCuO family using a near-field scanning optical microscope.
The observation of the Josephson effect for separations as large as 100 nm
between two wires indicates the existence of an anomalously large proximity
effect and show that the underdoped insulating material in the gap of the
junction is readily perturbed into the superconducting state. The critical
current of the junctions was found to be consistent with the conventional
Josephson relationship. This result constrains the applicability of SO(5)
theory to explain the phase diagram of high critical temperature
superconductors.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
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