Experimental Evidence for Topological Doping in the Cuprates

Some recent experiments that provide support for the concept of topological doping in cuprate superconductors are discussed. Consistent with the idea of charge segregation, it is argued that the scattering associated with the ``resonance'' peak found in YBa(2)Cu(3)O(6+x) and Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+\delta) comes from the Cu spins and not from the doped holes.Comment: 5 pp., uses aipproc.sty, for Proc. of U. Miami Conf: HTS9

Charge stripes in cuprate superconductors: The middle way

Charge and spin stripe order is a type of electronic crystal observed in certain layered cuprates associated with high-temperature superconductivity. Quantum-disordered stripes could be relevant for understanding the superconductivity. Here I discuss recent experimental characterizations of the stripe-ordered state in La(1.875)Ba(0.125)CuO(4), and compare them with properties of superconducting compositions.Comment: 6 pp., submitted to the proceedings of ECRYS 2005, J. Phys. I

Stripes and superconductivity in cuprate superconductors

One type of order that has been observed to compete with superconductivity in cuprates involves alternating charge and antiferromagnetic stripes. Recent neutron scattering studies indicate that the magnetic excitation spectrum of a stripe-ordered sample is very similar to that observed in superconducting samples. In fact, it now appears that there may be a universal magnetic spectrum for the cuprates. One likely implication of this universal spectrum is that stripes of a dynamic form are present in the superconducting samples. On cooling through the superconducting transition temperature, a gap opens in the magnetic spectrum, and the weight lost at low energy piles up above the gap; the transition temperature is correlated with the size of the spin gap. Depending on the magnitude of the spin gap with respect to the magnetic spectrum, the enhanced magnetic scattering at low temperature can be either commensurate or incommensurate. Connections between stripe correlations and superconductivity are discussed.Comment: 6 pp, for proceedings of SPIE mtg., July 31-Aug. 4, 2005 in San Dieg

Charge stripes and spin correlations in copper-oxide superconductors

Recent neutron diffraction studies have yielded evidence that, in a particular cuprate family, holes doped into the CuO(2) planes segregate into stripes that separate antiferromagnetic domains. Here it is shown that such a picture provides a quantitatively consistent interpretation of the spin fluctuations measured by neutron scattering in La(1.85)Sr(0.15)CuO(4) and YBa(2)Cu(3)O(6+x).Comment: 4 pp., LaTeX, uses espcrc2.sty, 2 eps figures included with psfig, for proceedings of M2S-HTSC-

Spin Dynamics in an Ordered Stripe Phase

Inelastic neutron scattering has been used to measure the low-energy spin excitations in the ordered charge-stripe phase of La(2)NiO(4+d) with d=0.133. Spin-wave-like excitations disperse away from the incommensurate magnetic superlattice points with a velocity ~60% of that in the d=0 compound. Incommensurate inelastic peaks remain well-resolved up to at least twice the magnetic ordering temperature. Paramagnetic scattering from a d=0.105 sample, which has a N\'eel-ordered ground state, shows anomalies suggestive of incipient stripe correlations. Similarities between these results and measurements on superconducting cuprates are discussed.Comment: 5 pp, 2 col., REVTeX, 4 epsf figures embedded with psfig; Abstract and introduction have been revise

Dynamical stripe correlations and the spin fluctuations in cuprate superconductors

It is conjectured that the anomalous spin dynamics observed in the normal state of cuprate superconductors might find its origin in a nearly ordered spin system which is kept in motion by thermally meandering charged domain walls. `Temperature sets the scale' finds a natural explanation, while a crossover to a low temperature quantum domain wall fluid is implied.Comment: 3 pages Revtex. To appear in Physica

Incompatibility of modulated checkerboard patterns with the neutron scattering resonance peak in cuprate superconductors

Checkerboard patterns have been proposed in order to explain STM experiments on the cuprates BSCCO and Na-CCOC. However the presence of these patterns has not been confirmed by a bulk probe such as neutron scattering. In particular, simple checkerboard patterns are inconsistent with neutron scattering data, in that they have low energy incommsensurate (IC) spin peaks rotated 45 degrees from the direction of the charge IC peaks. However, it is unclear whether other checkerboard patterns can solve the problem. In this paper, we have studied more complicated checkerboard patterns ("modulated checkerboards") by using spin wave theory and analyzed noncollinear checkerboards as well. We find that the high energy response of the modulated checkerboards is inconsistent with neutron scattering results, since they fail to exhibit a resonance peak at (pi,pi), which has recently been shown to be a universal feature of cuprate superconductors. We further argue that the newly proposed noncollinear checkerboard also lacks a resonance peak. We thus conclude that to date no checkerboard pattern has been proposed which satisfies both the low energy constraints and the high energy constraints imposed by the current body of experimental data in cuprate superconductors.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Fig.2 update

Energetics of Domain Walls in the 2D t-J model

Using the density matrix renormalization group, we calculate the energy of a domain wall in the 2D t-J model as a function of the linear hole density \rho_\ell, as well as the interaction energy between walls, for J/t=0.35. Based on these results, we conclude that the ground state always has domain walls for dopings 0 < x < 0.3. For x < 0.125, the system has (1,0) domain walls with \rho_\ell ~ 0.5, while for 0.125 < x < 0.17, the system has a possibly phase-separated mixture of walls with \rho_\ell ~ 0.5 and \rho_\ell =1. For x > 0.17, there are only walls with \rho_\ell =1. For \rho_\ell = 1, diagonal (1,1) domain walls have very nearly the same energy as (1,0) domain walls.Comment: Several minor changes. Four pages, four encapsulated figure

Incommensurability and spin excitations of diagonal stripes in cuprates

Based on the time-dependent Gutzwiller approximation we study the possibility that the diagonal incommensurate spin scattering in strongly underdoped lanthanum cuprates originates from antiferromagnetic domain walls (stripes). Calculation of the dynamic spin response for stripes in the diagonal phase yields the characteristic hour glass dispersion with the crossing of low energy Goldstone and high-energy branches at a characteristic energy Ecross at the antiferromagnetic wave-vector Q_{AF}. The high energy part is close to the parent antiferromagnet. Our results suggest that inelastic neutron scattering experiments on strongly underdoped lanthanum cuprates can be understood as due to a mixture of bond centered and site centered stripe configurations with substantial disorder.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure