On the Reconstructed Fermi Surface in the Underdoped Cuprates

The Fermi surface topologies of underdoped samples the high-Tc superconductor Bi2212 have been measured with angle resolved photoemission. By examining thermally excited states above the Fermi level, we show that the Fermi surfaces in the pseudogap phase of underdoped samples are actually composed of fully enclosed hole pockets. The spectral weight of these pockets is vanishingly small at the anti-ferromagnetic zone boundary, which creates the illusion of Fermi "arcs" in standard photoemission measurements. The area of the pockets as measured in this study is consistent with the doping level, and hence carrier density, of the samples measured. Furthermore, the shape and area of the pockets is well reproduced by a phenomenological model of the pseudogap phase as a spin liquid.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Physics Review Letter

Anisotropy of Transverse Sound in the Heavy-Fermion Superconductor UPt_3

We report the first measurements of the attenuation of ultrasound in the basal plane of superconducting UPt_3. Transverse sound propagating along the b axis shows a marked anisotropy in its temperature dependence when the polarization is rotated in and out of the basal plane. For polarization in the basal plane the attenuation varies linearly with temperature down to 35 mK and the slope scales as the square of the frequency. Our results appear to indicate the presence of an additional attenuation mechanism when compared with recent theories of anisotropic superconductors in the dirty limit

Transverse sound in a magnetic field in UPt_3

We have propagated transverse sound in a magnetic field in the basal plane of UPt_3, with the polarization vector oriented both in the basal plane and perpendicular to it. We observe a strong anisotropy in the magnetic field dependence of the attenuation for the two polarizations. Using a simple phenomenological model, we can understand the low-temperature field dependence as a natural consequence of the anisotropy with temperature in zero field reported earlier [Phys. Rev. Lett. 56, 1078 (1986)]. However, for increasing temperatures there are significant deviations from this model. In no case do we find evidence for new superconducting phases in a magnetic field