Proposed Chiral Texture of the Magnetic Moments of Unit-Cell Loop Currents in the Pseudogap Phase of Cuprate Superconductors

Abstract

We propose a novel chiral order parameter to explain the unusual polar Kerr effect in underdoped cuprates. It is based on the loop-current model by Varma, which is characterized by the in-plane anapole moment N and exhibits the magnetoelectric effect. We propose a helical structure where the vector N^(n) in the layer n is twisted by the angle pi/2 relative to N^(n-1), thus breaking inversion symmetry. We show that coupling between magnetoelectric terms in the neighboring layers for this structure produces optical gyrotropy, which results in circular dichroism and the polar Kerr effect.

5 pages, 3 figures; Supplemental Material added; corresponds to the published version

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• Characterization of the Intra-Unit-Cell magnetic order in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+d
• a-b anisotropy of the intra-unit-cell magnetic order in $\mathrm{YB}{\mathrm{a}}_2\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{u}}_3{\mathrm{O}}_{6.6}$
• Tilted loop currents in cuprate superconductors
• Disentangling X-ray dichroism and birefringence via high-purity polarimetry
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• Necessity of Time-Reversal Symmetry Breaking for the Polar Kerr Effect in Linear Response
• Coexistence of magnetic and charge order in a two-component order parameter description of the layered superconductors
• Polar Kerr effect from a time-reversal symmetry breaking unidirectional charge density wave
• Incommensurate chirality density wave transition in a hybrid molecular framework
• Incipient loop current order in the under-doped cuprate superconductors
• Flux phase as possible time-reversal symmetry breaking surface states of high-$T_C$ cuprate superconductors
• A calculation for polar Kerr effect in high temperature cuprate superconductors
• Orbital Gravito-Magnetoelectric response and Orbital magnetic quadrupole moment correction
• Evidence for Intra-Unit-Cell magnetic order in the pseudo-gap state of high-Tc cuprates
• Microscopic evidence for imaginary charge density wave in a kagome metal
• Optical vortex probe of loop-current chirality in moiré materials