paper

Dynamic electron correlations with charge order wavelength along all directions in the copper oxide plane

arXiv:2102.00016 · doi:10.1038/s41467-020-20824-7

Abstract

In strongly correlated systems the strength of Coulomb interactions between electrons, relative to their kinetic energy, plays a central role in determining their emergent quantum mechanical phases. We perform resonant x-ray scattering on Bi $_{2}$ Sr $_{2}$ CaCu $_{2}$ O $_{8 + I^´}$ , a prototypical cuprate superconductor, to probe electronic correlations within the CuO $_{2}$ plane. We discover a dynamic quasi-circular pattern in the $x$ - $y$ scattering plane with a radius that matches the wave vector magnitude of the well-known static charge order. Along with doping- and temperature-dependent measurements, our experiments reveal a picture of charge order competing with superconductivity where short-range domains along $x$ and $y$ can dynamically rotate into any other in-plane direction. This quasi-circular spectrum, a hallmark of Brazovskii-type fluctuations, has immediate consequences to our understanding of rotational and translational symmetry breaking in the cuprates. We discuss how the combination of short- and long-range Coulomb interactions results in an effective non-monotonic potential that may determine the quasi-circular pattern.

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Nature Communications. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20824-7. Supplementary materials are available through the published version in Nature Communications