Mott physics, sign structure, ground state wavefunction, and high-Tc superconductivity

Abstract

In this article I give a pedagogical illustration of why the essential problem of high-Tc superconductivity in the cuprates is about how an antiferromagnetically ordered state can be turned into a short-range state by doping. I will start with half-filling where the antiferromagnetic ground state is accurately described by the Liang-Doucot-Anderson (LDA) wavefunction. Here the effect of the Fermi statistics becomes completely irrelevant due to the no double occupancy constraint. Upon doping, the statistical signs reemerge, albeit much reduced as compared to the original Fermi statistical signs. By precisely incorporating this altered statistical sign structure at finite doping, the LDA ground state can be recast into a short-range antiferromagnetic state. Superconducting phase coherence arises after the spin correlations become short-ranged, and the superconducting phase transition is controlled by spin excitations. I will stress that the pseudogap phenomenon naturally emerges as a crossover between the antiferromagnetic and superconducting phases. As a characteristic of non Fermi liquid, the mutual statistical interaction between the spin and charge degrees of freedom will reach a maximum in a high-temperature "strange metal phase" of the doped Mott insulator.

12 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Condensation, excitation, pairing, and superfluid density in high-$T_c$ superconductors: magnetic resonance mode as a roton analogue and a possible spin-mediated pairing
• On the sign structure of doped Mott insulators
• Emergence of Cooper pairs, d-wave duality and the phase diagram of cuprate superconductors
• Mutual-Chern-Simons effective theory of doped antiferromagnets
• Superconducting ground state of a doped Mott insulator
• Phase String Theory for Doped Antiferromagnets
• Electron fractionalization and unconventional order parameters of the t-J model
• Lower Pseudogap Phase: A Spin/Vortex Liquid State
• Charge dynamics in the phase string model for high-Tc superconductors

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Luttinger-volume violating Fermi liquid in the pseudogap phase of the cuprate superconductors
• Critical role of the sign structure in the doped Mott insulator: Superconductivity vs. Fermi liquid
• Two-Hole Ground State: Dichotomy in Pairing Symmetry
• Continuous doping of a cuprate surface: new insights from in-situ ARPES
• Two-hole ground state wavefunction: Non-BCS pairing in a $t$-$J$ two-leg ladder system
• Breakdown of the Bloch-wave behavior for a single hole in a gapped antiferromagnet
• Intrinsic translational symmetry breaking in a doped Mott insulator
• Single-hole wave function in two dimensions: A case study of the doped Mott insulator
• Modern Physics of the Condensed State: Strong Correlations and Quantum Topology
• Nature of a single doped hole in two-leg Hubbard and $t$-$J$ ladders
• Doping-driven Antiferromagnetic Insulator -- Superconductor Transition: a Quantum Monte Carlo Study
• Singularity in self-energy and composite fermion excitations of interacting electrons
• Phenomenological Single-Particle Green's Function for the Pseudogap and Superconducting Phases of High-T${}_c$ Cuprates
• Spin Texture in Doped Mott Insulators with Spin-Orbit Coupling
• Mottness, Phase String, and High-$T_c$ Superconductivity
• An Emergent World of Gauge Force and Partons
• Effect of phase string on single-hole dynamics in the two-leg Hubbard ladder