The Cuprate Pseudogap: Competing Order Parameters or Precursor Superconductivity

Details The Cuprate Pseudogap: Competing Order Parameters or Precursor Superconductivity The Cuprate Pseudogap: Competing Order Parameters or Precursor Superconductivity

2002-05-24

arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0205497v3

Phys. Rev. B 68, 024520 (2003)

Physics

Condensed Matter

Superconductivity

9 pages, 8 figures; text rewritten in the PRB format

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevB.68.024520

In this paper we compare two broad classes of theories for the pseudogap in cuprate superconductors. The comparison in made in reference to measurements of the superfluid density, $\rho_s(T,x)$, in $YBa_2CuO_{7- \delta}$ films having a wide range of stoichiometries, $\delta$, or, hole doping, $x$. The theoretical challenge raised by these (and previous) data is to understand why the T-dependence of $\rho_s(T,x)$ is insensitive to the fermionic excitation gap $\Delta(T,x)$, which opens in the normal state and persists into the superconducting state, when presumably $\rho_s(T)$ is governed, at least in part, by fermionic excitations. Indeed, $\rho_s(T,x)$ seems to have a BCS-like dependence on $T_c(x)$, which, although not unexpected, is not straightforward to understand in pseudogapped superconductors where $T_c(x)$ and the excitation gap have little in common. Here, we contrast "extrinsic" and "intrinsic" theoretical approaches to the pseudogap and argue that the former (for example, associated with a competing order parameter) exhibits more obvious departures from BCS-like $T$ dependences in $\rho_s(T)$ than approaches which associate the pseudogap with the superconductivity itself. Examples of the latter are Fermi liquid based schemes as well as a pair fluctuation mean field theory. Thus far, the measured behavior of the superfluid density appears to argue against an extrinsic interpretation of the pseudogap, and supports instead its intrinsic origin.

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