Pairing Fluctuations Determine Low Energy Electronic Spectra in Cuprate Superconductors

Abstract

We describe here a minimal theory of tight binding electrons moving on the square planar Cu lattice of the hole-doped cuprates and mixed quantum mechanically with pairs of them (Cooper pairs). Superconductivity occurring at the transition temperature T_c is the long-range, d-wave symmetry phase coherence of these Cooper pairs. Fluctuations necessarily associated with incipient long-range superconducting order have a generic large distance behaviour near T_c. We calculate the spectral density of electrons coupled to such Cooper pair fluctuations and show that features observed in Angle Resolved Photo Emission Spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments on different cuprates above T_c as a function of doping and temperature emerge naturally in this description. These include `Fermi arcs' with temperature-dependent length and an antinodal pseudogap which fills up linearly as the temperature increases towards the pseudogap temperature. Our results agree quantitatively with experiment. Below T_c, the effects of nonzero superfluid density and thermal fluctuations are calculated and compared successfully with some recent ARPES experiments, especially the observed `bending' or deviation of the superconducting gap from the canonical d-wave form.

14 pages, 8 figures (to appear in Phys. Rev. B)

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• Effective SU(2) theory for the pseudogap state
• Fermi arcs and pseudogap phase in a minimal microscopic model of $d$-wave superconductivity
• Quantum oscillations in a d-wave vortex liquid
• Robustness of the nodal d-wave spectrum to strongly fluctuating competing order
• Fluctuations and Higgs mechanism in Under-Doped Cuprates: a Review
• The correlation between the Nernst effect and fluctuation diamagnetism in strongly fluctuating superconductors
• Electronic spectral function in fractionalized Pair Density Wave scenario
• High Temperature Superconductivity in the Cuprates: Materials, Phenomena and a Mechanism
• Superconducting fluctuations and charge-4$e$ plaquette state at strong coupling
• A critical nematic phase with pseudogap-like behavior in twisted bilayers
• Crucial role of Internal Collective Modes in Underdoped Cuprates
• Nonequilibrium probe of paired electron pockets in the underdoped cuprates
• Ginzburg-Landau Like Theory for High Temperature Superconductivity in the Cuprates: Emergent d-wave Order