Breakdown of the Wiedemann-Franz law in strongly-coupled electron-phonon system, application to the cuprates

With the superconducting cuprates in mind, a set of unitary transformations was used to decouple electrons and phonons in the strong-coupling limit. While phonons remain almost unrenormalised, electrons are transformed into itinerent singlet and triplet bipolarons and thermally excited polarons. The triplet/singlet exchange energy and the binding energy of the bipolarons are thought to account for the spin and charge pseudogaps in the cuprates, respectively. We calculated the Hall Lorenz number of the system to show that the Wiedemann-Franz law breaks down due to the interference of the polaron and bipolaron contributions to heat flow. The model provides a quantitative fit to magnetotransport data in the cuprates. Furthermore we are able to extract the phonon component of the thermal conductivity with the use of experimental data and the model. Our results further validate the use of a charged Bose gas model to describe normal and superconducting properties of unconventional superconductors.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to Physical Review

Vortex and critical fields in charged Bose liquids and unconventional superconductors

A single vortex in the charged Bose gas (CBG) has a charged core and its profile different from the vortex in neutral and BCS superfluids. Lower and upper critical fields of CBG are discussed. The unusual resistive upper critical field, Hc2(T), of many cuprates and a few other unconventional superconductors is described as the Bose-Einstein condensation field of preformed bosons-bipolarons. Its nonlinear temperature dependence follows from the scaling arguments. Exceeding the Pauli paramagnetic limit is explained. Controversy in the determination of Hc2(T) of cuprates from kinetic and thermodynamic measurements is addressed in the framework of the bipolaron theory.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, invited paper at the International Conference 'Vortex III', Crete (September 2003

Low temperature thermodynamics of charged bosons in a random potential and the specific heat of La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4} below Tc

We propose a simple analytical form of the partition function for charged bosons localised in a random potential and derive the consequent thermodynamics below the superfluid transition temperature. In the low temperature limit, the specific heat, C, depends on the localisation length exponent nu: C is linear for nu1 we find C proportional to T^{1/nu}. This unusual sub-linear temperature dependence of the specific heat has recently been observed in La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4} below Tc.Comment: Revtex, 6 pages, 4 postscript figure

D-wave Bose-Einstein condensation and the London penetration depth in superconducting cuprates

We show that bipolaron formation leads to a d-wave Bose-Einstein condensate in cuprates. It is the bipolaron energy dispersion rather than a particular pairing interaction which is responsible for the d-wave symmetry. The unusual low-temperature dependence of the magnetic field penetration depth in cuprates is explained by the localisation of bosons in the random potential. The temperature dependence of the penetration depth is linear with positive or negative slope depending on the random field profile.Comment: 4 pages (RevTeX), 4 figure

Complex curves and non-perturbative effects in c=1 string theory

We investigate a complex curve in the $c=1$ string theory which provides a geometric interpretation for different kinds of D-branes. The curve is constructed for a theory perturbed by a tachyon potential using its matrix model formulation. The perturbation removes the degeneracy of the non-perturbed curve and allows to identify its singularities with ZZ branes. Also, using the constructed curve, we find non-perturbative corrections to the free energy and elucidate their CFT origin.Comment: 8 pages, Contribution to the proceedings of RTN Workshop, Kolymbari, Crete, Greece, 5-10 September 200

New Fundamental dHvA Frequency in Canonical Low-Dimensional Fermi Liquids

We show that a new fundamental period $P_{f}$ of dHvA oscillations, which appears along with other ``forbidden'' combination frequencies in a multi-band canonical Fermi-liquid, is very robust with respect to a finite smearing of Landau levels and a background of non-quantized states. We analyse the possibility of measuring small Fermi surface pockets with the use of the ``forbidden'' frequencies.Comment: 10 pages, RevTeX 3.0, with 2 PS Figure

Quantum magnetic oscillations and angle-resolved photoemission from impurity bands in cuprate superconductors

Present-day angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has offered a tremendous advance in the understanding of electron energy spectra in cuprate superconductors and some related compounds. However, in high magnetic field, magnetic quantum oscillations at low temperatures indicate the existence of small electron (hole) Fermi pockets seemingly missing in ARPES of hole (electron) doped cuprates. Here ARPES and quantum oscillations are reconciled in the framework of an impurity band in the charge-transfer Mott-Hubbard insulator

Normal state diamagnetism of charged bosons in cuprate superconductors

Normal state orbital diamagnetism of charged bosons quantitatively accounts for recent high-resolution magnetometery results near and above the resistive critical temperature Tc of superconducting cuprates. Our parameter-free descriptions of normal state diamagnetism, Tc, upper critical fields and specific heat anomalies unambiguously support the 3D Bose-Einstein condensation at Tc of preformed real-space pairs with zero off-diagonal order parameter above Tc, at variance with phase fluctuation (or vortex) scenarios of the "normal" state of cuprates.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Twistor Approach to String Compactifications: a Review

We review a progress in obtaining the complete non-perturbative effective action of type II string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold. This problem is equivalent to understanding quantum corrections to the metric on the hypermultiplet moduli space. We show how all these corrections, which include D-brane and NS5-brane instantons, are incorporated in the framework of the twistor approach, which provides a powerful mathematical description of hyperkahler and quaternion-Kahler manifolds. We also present new insights on S-duality, quantum mirror symmetry, connections to integrable models and topological strings.Comment: 99 pages; minor corrections; journal versio

Isotope effects in high-Tc cuprate superconductors: Ultimate proof for bipolaron theory of superconductivity

Developing a theory of high-temperature superconductivity in copper oxides is one of the outstanding problems in physics. Twenty-five years after its discovery, no consensus on the microscopic theory has been reached despite tremendous theoretical and experimental efforts. Attempts to understand this problem are hindered by the subtle interplay among a few mechanisms and the presence of several nearly degenerate and competing phases in these systems. Here we provide unified parameter-free explanation of the observed oxygen-isotope effects on the critical temperature, the magnetic-field penetration depth, and on the normal-state pseudogap for underdoped cuprate superconductors within the framework of the bipolaron theory compatible with the strong Coulomb and Froehlich interactions, and with many other independent observations in these highly polarizable doped insulators. Remarkably, we also quantitatively explain measured critical temperatures and magnitudes of the magnetic-field penetration depth. The present work thus represents an ultimate proof of the bipolaron theory of high-temperature superconductivity, which takes into account essential Coulomb and electron-phonon interactions.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure