Comments on Kerr effect and gyrotropic order in cuprates

Abstract

I comment on two recent papers on Kerr effect as evidence of gyrotropic order in cuprates, and I suggest that the arguments may not be sound. The difficulty is that in practically all cases the wave vector $k_z$ perpendicular to the copper-oxygen plane is not a good quantum number. This appears to be problematic for arXiv:1212.2698, whereas in arXiv:1212.2274 the symmetry arguments may turn out to be robust, but the microscopic picture is wanting. Thus, the Kerr effect in cuprates remains a puzzle, as there is little doubt that the arguments presented against time reversal symmetry breaking appear to be rather strong in both of these papers on experimental grounds.

3.25 pages

References in corpus (2)

• Kerr effect as evidence of gyrotropic order in the cuprates
• Berry phase mechanism for optical gyrotropy in stripe-ordered cuprates

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• Optical gyrotropy as a test for dynamic chiral magnetic effect of Weyl semimetals
• Hall and Seebeck coefficients from bi-directional charge density wave state in high-$T_c$ cuprates
• A calculation for polar Kerr effect in high temperature cuprate superconductors
• Multiple Broken Symmetries in Striped La${}_{2-x}$Ba${}_x$CuO${}_4$ detected by the Field Symmetric Nernst Effect
• Normal state Nernst effect from bi-directional bond density wave state in high T_c cuprates