Quantum Protectorates in the Cuprate Superconductors

Following the identification of the pairing state, the major challenge in understanding the cuprate superconductors has been determining the evolution with doping and temperature of their anomalous normal state behavior. Key to this understanding is the experimentally determined magnetic phase diagram for the cuprates, which provides information on the protected magnetic properties of the normal state, generic behavior that is reliably the same one system to the next, regardless of details. I discuss the constraints this places on candidate quantum protectorates, and the status of microscopic model calculations for a protectorate consistent with these constraints, the nearly antiferromagnetic Fermi liquid.Comment: Invited paper to be published in Physica C as part of the proceedings of M2S-HTSC-VI, Houston, Feb.200

Theory of the Normal State of Cuprate Superconducting Materials

We have proposed a model Hamiltonian, which describes a simple physical picture that the holes with single occupation constraint introduced by doping move in the antiferromagnetic background of the copper spins, to describe the normal state of the cuprate superconducting materials, and used the renormalization group method to calculate its anomalous magnetic and transport properties. The anomalous magnetic behavior of the normal state is controlled by both the copper spin and the spin part of the doping hole residing on the O sites. The physical resistivity is determined by both the quasiparticle-spin-fluctuation and the quasiparticle-gauge-fluctuation scatterings and the Hall coefficient is determined by the parity-odd gauge interaction deriving from the nature of the hard-core boson which describes the charge part of the doping holes.Comment: 36 pages, no figure

Magnetically mediated superconductivity: Crossover from cubic to tetragonal lattice

We compare predictions of the mean-field theory of superconductivity for nearly antiferromagnetic and nearly ferromagnetic metals for cubic and tetragonal lattices. The calculations are based on the parametrization of an effective interaction arising from the exchange of magnetic fluctuations and assume that a single band is relevant for superconductivity. The results show that for comparable model parameters, the robustness of magnetic pairing increases gradually as one goes from a cubic structure to a more and more anisotropic tetragonal structure either on the border of antiferromagnetism or ferromagnetism.Comment: 16 pages 14 figure

The Influence of Magnetic Imperfections on the Low Temperature Properties of D-wave Superconductors

We consider the influence of planar ``magnetic" imperfections which destroy the local magnetic order, such as Zn impurities or $Cu^{2+}$ vacancies, on the low temperature properties of the cuprate superconductors. In the unitary limit, at low temperatures, for a $d_{x^2-y^2}$ pairing state such imperfections produce low energy quasiparticles with an anistropic spectrum in the vicinity of the nodes. We find that for the $La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4$ system, one is in the {\em quasi-one-dimensional} regime of quasiparticle scattering, discussed recently by Altshuler, Balatsky, and Rosengren, for impurity concentrations in excess of $\sim 0.16\%$ whereas YBCO$_7$ appears likely to be in the true 2D scattering regime for Zn concentrations less than $1.6\%$. We show the neutron scattering results of Mason et al. \cite{Aeppli} on $La_{1.86}Sr_{0.14}CuO_4$ provide strong evidence for ``dirty d-wave" superconductivity in their samples. We obtain simple expressions for the dynamic spin susceptibility and $^{63}Cu$ spin-lattice relaxation time, $^{63}T_1$, in the superconducting state.Comment: 10 pages; revtex; Los Alamos preprint LA-UR-94-53

Non-perturbative approach to nearly antiferromagnetic Fermi liquids

We present a non-perturbative approach to the problem of quasiparticles coupled to spin-fluctuations. If the fully dressed spin-fluctuation propagator is used in the Feynman graph expansion of the single-particle Green's function, the problem of summing all spin-fluctuation exchange graphs (i.e without virtual fermion loops) can be cast as a functional integral over gaussian distributed random vector fields. A Monte Carlo sampling of this functional integral does not suffer from the 'fermion sign problem' and offers an attractive alternative to perturbative calculations. We compare the results of our computer simulations with perturbation theory and self-consistent one-loop calculations.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

On the vertex corrections in antiferromagnetic spin fluctuation theories

We argue that recent calculations by Amin and Stamp (PRL 77, 301 (1996); cond-mat/9601086) overestimate the strength of the vertex corrections in the spin-fermion model for cuprates. We clarify the physical origin of the apparent discrepancy between their results and earlier calculations. We also comment on the relative sign of the vertex correction.Comment: 3 pages, Revtex, 1 figure, ps-file also available at http://lifshitz.physics.wisc.edu/www/morr/morr_homepage.htm

Understanding High Temperature Superconductors: Progress and Prospects

I review progress in measurements of the dynamic spin susceptibility in the normal state which yield a new phase diagram and discuss microscopic calculations which yield qualitative, and in many cases, quantitative agreement with the measured changes in the quasiparticle, transport, magnetotransport, and optical properties of the cuprate superconductors as one varies doping and temperature provided one describes the systems as nearly anti-ferromagnetic Fermi liquids in which the effective magnetic interaction between planar quasiparticles mirrors the dynamic spin susceptibility measured in NMR and INS experiments. Together with the demonstration that the NAFL pairing potential leads inexorably to a d_x2-y2,pairing state, this work provides a "proof of concept" for the NAFL description of high Tc materials. I review Eliashberg calculations of the mean-field behavior found in overdoped systems and discuss the extent to which the crossovers to pseudoscaling and pseudogap behavior found in the effective magnetic interaction and quasiparticle behavior in the optimally doped and underdoped systems may be derived microscopically. I conclude with a tentative scenario for the dependence of Tc on doping level and imperfections in different systems.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. To appear in a special issue of Physica C of the M2S-HTSC-V Conference held Feb. 28-Mar. 4, 1997, in Beijing, Chin

Prerequisite for superconductivity: appropriate spin-charge correlations

This work investigates the relation between superconductivity and correlations. A simple calculation shows that the appropriate spin-charge correlation is the key role to any superconductivity, and this calculation is consistent with the analyses of unusual properties of superconductors. (Note: the Tc of this model is not given clearly in this work, but we have advanced this mechanism to a t-x model which includes various superconductivities and magnetisms (please see arXiv:0707.3660 and following works).)Comment: 7page

Density Fluctuation Mediated Superconductivity

We conpare predictions of the mean-field theory of supercnductivity for metallic systems on the border of a density instability for cubic and tetragonal lattices. The calculations are based on a parametrisation of an effective interaction arising from the exchange of density fluctuations and assume that a single band is relevant for superconductivity. The results show that for comparable model parameters, desnity fluctuation mediated pairing is more robust in quasi-two dimensions than in three dimensions, and that the robustness of pairing increases gradually as one goes from a cubic to a more and more anisotropic tetragonal structure. We also find that the robustness of density fluctuation mediated pairing can depend sensitively on the incipient ordering wavevector. We discuss the similarities and differences between the mean-field theories of superconductivity for density and magnetically mediated pairing