Observation of emergent scaling of spin-charge correlations at the onset of the pseudogap

Abstract

In strongly correlated materials, interacting electrons are entangled and form collective quantum states, resulting in rich low-temperature phase diagrams. Notable examples include cuprate superconductors, in which superconductivity emerges at low doping out of an unusual "pseudogap" metallic state above the critical temperature. The Fermi-Hubbard model, describing a wide range of phenomena associated with strong electron correlations, still offers major computational challenges despite its simple formulation. In this context, ultracold atoms quantum simulators have provided invaluable insights into the microscopic nature of correlated quantum states. Here, we use a quantum gas microscope Fermi-Hubbard simulator to explore a wide range of dopings and temperatures in a regime where a pseudogap is known to develop. By measuring multi-point correlation functions up to fifth order, we uncover a novel universal scaling behaviour in magnetic and higher-order spin-charge correlations characterised by a doping-dependent temperature scale. Accurate comparisons with determinant Quantum Monte Carlo and Minimally Entangled Typical Thermal States simulations confirm that this temperature scale is comparable to the pseudogap temperature T*. Our quantitative findings reveal a novel qualitative behaviour of magnetic properties and spin-charge correlations in an emergent pseudogap and pave the way towards the exploration of charge pairing and collective phenomena expected at lower temperatures.

8 + 11 pages, 5 + 10 figures. Accepted version

References in corpus (26)

• Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Gases
• Electronic structure of quantum materials studied by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
• Magnetic order in the pseudogap phase of high-$T_C$ superconductors
• The Hubbard Model
• Minimally Entangled Typical Thermal State Algorithms
• Observation of pseudogap behavior in a strongly interacting Fermi gas
• Momentum space anisotropy and pseudogaps: a comparative cluster dynamical mean field analysis of the doping-driven metal-insulator transition in the two dimensional Hubbard model
• Fluctuation diagnostics of the electron self-energy: Origin of the pseudogap physics
• Coexistence of superconductivity with partially filled stripes in the Hubbard model
• Measuring the one-particle excitations of ultracold fermionic atoms by stimulated Raman spectroscopy
• Frustration- and doping-induced magnetism in a Fermi-Hubbard simulator
• Observation of Nagaoka Polarons in a Fermi-Hubbard Quantum Simulator
• Direct observation of non-local fermion pairing in an attractive Fermi-Hubbard gas
• Intertwined spin, charge and pair correlations in the two-dimensional Hubbard model in the thermodynamic limit
• Directly imaging spin polarons in a kinetically frustrated Hubbard system
• Origin and fate of the pseudogap in the doped Hubbard model
• A neutral-atom Hubbard quantum simulator in the cryogenic regime
• Dominant fifth-order correlations in doped quantum anti-ferromagnets
• Formation of stripes in a mixed-dimensional cold-atom Fermi-Hubbard system
• Fragmented Cooper pair condensation in striped superconductors
• Optical superlattice for engineering Hubbard couplings in quantum simulation
• Mott transition and pseudogap of the square-lattice Hubbard model: results from center-focused cellular dynamical mean-field theory
• Deconvolving the components of the sign problem
• Fragmented superconductivity in the Hubbard model as solitons in Ginzburg-Landau theory
• Forestalled Phase Separation as the Precursor to Stripe Order
• Geometric orthogonal metals: Hidden antiferromagnetism and pseudogap from fluctuating stripes

Cited by in corpus (4)

• A neutral-atom Hubbard quantum simulator in the cryogenic regime
• The foot, the fan, and the cuprate phase diagram: Fermi-volume-changing quantum phase transitions
• Fractionalized Fermi liquids and the cuprate phase diagram
• Finite temperature dopant-induced spin reorganization explored via tensor networks in the two-dimensional $t$-$J$ model