Reinvestigation of crystal symmetry and fluctuations in La${}_2$CuO${}_4$

Abstract

New surprises continue to be revealed about La${}_2$CuO${}_4$, the parent compound of the original cuprate superconductor. Here we present neutron scattering evidence that the structural symmetry is lower than commonly assumed. The static distortion results in anisotropic Cu-O bonds within the CuO${}_2$ planes; such anisotropy is relevant to pinning charge stripes in hole-doped samples. Associated with the extra structural modulation is a soft phonon mode. If this phonon were to soften completely, the resulting change in CuO${}_6$ octahedral tilts would lead to weak ferromagnetism. Hence, we suggest that this mode may be the "chiral" phonon inferred from recent studies of the thermal Hall effect. We also note the absence of interaction between the antiferromagnetic spin waves and low-energy optical phonons, in contrast to what is observed in hole-doped samples.

arXiv comment12 pages, 10 figures; accepted version

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Strongly-overdoped La${}_{2-x}$Sr${}_x$CuO${}_4$: Evidence for Josephson-coupled grains of strongly-correlated superconductor
• Effect of the electronic charge gap on LO bond-stretching phonons in undoped La${}_2$CuO${}_4$ calculated using LDA+U
• Thermal Hall Effect in the Kitaev-Heisenberg System with Spin-Phonon Coupling
• Crystal Symmetry of Stripe Ordered La1.88Sr0.12CuO4
• Structural origins of the infamous "Low Temperature Orthorhombic" to "Low Temperature Tetragonal" phase transition in high-Tc cuprates
• The hidden competing phase revealed by first-principles calculations of phonon instability in the nearly optimally doped cuprate La${}_{1.875}$Sr${}_{0.125}$CuO${}_4$
• Spin canting and lattice symmetry in La${}_2$CuO${}_4$
• Charge density waves and pinning by lattice anisotropy in 214 cuprates