We propose a new parton theory of the hole-doped cuprates, describing the evolution from the pseudogap metal with small Fermi surfaces to the conventional Fermi liquid with a large Fermi surface. We introduce 2 ancilla qubits per square lattice site, and employ them to obtain a variational wavefunction of a fractionalized Fermi liquid for the pseudogap metal state. We propose a multi-layer Hamiltonion for the cuprates, with the electrons residing in the 'physical' layer, and the ancilla qubits in two 'hidden' layers: the hidden layers can be decoupled from the physical layer by a canonical transformation which leaves the hidden layers in a trivial gapped state. This Hamiltonian yields an emergent gauge theory which describes not only the fractionalized Fermi liquid, but also the conventional Fermi liquid, and possible exotic intermediate phases and critical points. The fractionalized Fermi liquid has hole pockets with quasiparticle weight which is large only on "Fermi arcs", and fermionic spinon excitations which carry charges of the emergent gauge fields.
We study the pseudogap Bose-Fermi Anderson model with a continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo (CT-QMC) method. We discuss some delicate aspects of the transformation from this model to the Bose-Fermi Kondo model. We show that the CT-QMC method can be used at sufficiently low temperatures to access the quantum critical properties of these models.
We study the spectral function of the pseudogap phase of quasi one-dimensional charge density wave materials. Using a stochastic approach and emphasizing an exact treatment of non-Gaussian order parameter fluctuations we will go beyond a usual perturbative calculation. Our results give a good fit to ARPES data and explain the absence of the Fermi edge in charge density wave materials even above the Peierls transition, indicating non-Fermi liquid behavior.
The question of whether the pseudogap in high $T_c$ cuprates is related to super conducting precursor effects or to the existence of extrinsic bosonic massive excitations is investigated on the basis of the Boson-Fermion model. The characteristic three peak structure of the electronic spectral function and the temperature dependent Fermi vector derived here are signatures for a two component scenario which can be tested by ARPES and BIS experiments.
We propose that the non-equilibrium current measured in the $a-b$ plane of an underdoped cuprate (in either the strange metal or pseudogap regime) in contact with either an overdoped cuprate or a standard Fermi liquid can be used diagnose how different the pseudogap and strange metals are from a Fermi liquid. Naively one expects the strange metal to be more different from a Fermi liquid than is the pseudogap. We compute the expected non-equilibrium transport signal with the three Green functions that are available in the literature: 1) marginal Fermi liquid theory, 2) the phenomenological ansa…
Spectral functions are evaluated numerically within the t-t'-J model as relevant for electron-doped cuprates. The Fermi surface develops from a pocket-like into a large one with doping. The corresponding pseudogap in the nodal direction is well resolved at low doping and vanishes at intermediate doping. Its presence is strongly temperature dependent and thus connected to longer-range antiferromagnetic correlations. Features including double effective band and optical conductivity are consistent with experiments on electron-doped cuprates without invoking the closing of the Mott-Hubbard gap.
We calculate spectral functions within the t-J model as relevant to cuprates in the regime from low to optimum doping. On the basis of equations of motion for projected operators an effective spin-fermion coupling is derived. The self energy due to short-wavelength transverse spin fluctuations is shown to lead to a modified selfconsistent Born approximation, which can explain strong asymmetry between hole and electron quasiparticles. The coupling to long-wavelength longitudinal spin fluctuations governs the low-frequency behavior and results in a pseudogap behavior, which at low doping effecti…
One of the distinctive features of hole-doped cuprate superconductors is the onset of a `pseudogap' below a temperature $T^*$. Recent experiments suggest that there may be a connection between the existence of the pseudogap and the topology of the Fermi surface. Here, we address this issue by studying the two-dimensional Hubbard model with two distinct numerical methods. We find that the pseudogap only exists when the Fermi surface is hole-like and that, for a broad range of parameters, its opening is concomitant with a Fermi surface topology change from electron- to hole-like. We identify a c…
We have studied the pseudogap formation in the single-particle spectra of the half-filling two-dimensional Hubbard model. Using a Green's function with the one-loop self-energy correction of the spin and charge fluctuations, we have numerically calculated the self-energy, the spectral function, and the density of states in the weak-coupling regime at finite temperature. Pseudogap formations have been observed in both the density of states and the spectral function at the Fermi level. The pseudogap in the spectral function is explained by the non-Fermi-liquid-like nature of the self-energy. The…
We investigate the low energy properties of a correlated metal in the proximity of a Mott insulator within the Hubbard model in two dimensions. We introduce a new version of the Cellular Dynamical Mean Field Theory using cumulants as the basic irreducible objects. These are used for re-constructing the lattice quantities from their cluster counterparts. The zero temperature one particle Green's function is characterized by the appearance of lines of zeros, in addition to a Fermi surface which changes topology as a function of doping. We show that these features are intimately connected to the …
A precursor effect on the Fermi surface in the two-dimensional Hubbard model at finite temperatures near the antiferromagnetic instability is studied using three different itinerant approaches: the second order perturbation theory, the paramagnon theory (PT), and the two-particle self-consistent (TPSC) approach. In general, at finite temperature, the Fermi surface of the interacting electron systems is not sharply defined due to the broadening effects of the self-energy. In order to take account of those effects we consider the single-particle spectral function $A({\bf k},0)$ at the Fermi leve…
Spectral functions within the generalized t-J model as relevant to cuprates are analyzed using the method of equations of motion for projected fermion operators. In the evaluation of the self energy the decoupling of spin and single-particle fluctuations is performed. It is shown that in an undoped antiferromagnet (AFM) the method reproduces the selfconsistent Born approximation. For finite doping with short range AFM order the approximation evolves into a paramagnon contribution which retains large incoherent contribution in the hole part of the spectral function as well as the hole-pocket-li…
Lanthanum family of high-temperature cuprate superconductors is known to exhibit both spin and charge electronic modulations around doping level 1/8. We assume that these modulations have the character of two-dimensional spin-vortex checkerboard and investigate whether this assumption is consistent with the Fermi surface and the pseudogap measured by angle-resolved photo-emission spectroscopy. We also explore the possibility of observing quantum oscillations of transport coefficients in such a background. These investigations are based on a model of non-interacting spin-1/2 fermions hopping on…
Influence of two type of spin structures on the form of the Fermi surface (FS) and a photoemission intensity map is studied for t-t'-U Hubbard model. Mean field calculations are done for the stripe phase and for the spiral spin structure. It is shown, that unlike a case of electron doping, the hole-doped models are unstable with respect to formation of such structures. The pseudogap anisotropies are different for h- and e- doping. In accordance with ARPES data for La2SrxCuO4 the stripe phase is characterized by quasi-one-dimensional segments of FS at k=(π,0) and by suppression of spectral weig…
We introduce a very simple and exactly solvable model that supports Fermi arcs in its ground state and excitation spectrum. These arcs come in pairs, and merge into what we call a pseudo Fermi surface along which fermions are gapped; this fermion gap is naturally identified as a pseudogap. Comparison will be made with phenomenology of high temperature cuprate superconductors.
We study the behavior of the entropy of the pseudogap Bose-Fermi Kondo model within a dynamical large-$N$ limit, where $N$ is related to the symmetry group of the model. This model is a general quantum impurity model that describes a localized level coupled to a fermionic bath having a density of states that vanishes in a powerlaw fashion near the Fermi energy and to a bosonic bath possessing a powerlaw spectral density below a cutoff energy. As a function of the couplings to the baths various quantum phase transitions can occur. We study how the impurity entropy changes across these zero-temp…
We analyze the fluctuation corrections to magnetic ordering in the case of a 3D antiferromagnet with flat Fermi surfaces, as physically realized in the case of chromium, and find that they are insufficient to produce a quantum critical point. This implies that the critical point observed in vandium doped chromium is due to a loss of nesting. We also derive the fermion self-energy in the paramagnetic phase and find that a pseudogap exists, though its magnitude is significantly reduced as compared to the spectral gap in the ordered state in the limit where the latter is small in comparison to th…
The proposed loop-current order in cuprates cannot give the observed pseudogap and the Fermi-arcs because it preserves translation symmetry. A modification to a periodic arrangement of the four possible orientations of the order parameter with a large period of between about 12 to 30 lattice constants is proposed and shown in a simple and controlled calculation to give one-particle spectra with every feature as in the ARPES experiments. The results follow from (1) the currents at the boundaries of the periodic domains with similar topology as the Affleck-Marston flux phase, and (2) the mixing …
Motivated by the realization of spin-valley Hubbard on triangular moiré superlattice in ABC trilayer graphene aligned with hexagon boron nitride (hBN) and possibly also in twisted transition metal dichalcogenide homobilayers, we study possible Mott insulating phases and pseudogap metals based on symmetry constraint and parton mean field theories. First we show that Luttinger constraint allows two distinct symmetric and featureless Fermi liquids when there is an inter-valley Hund's term breaking $SU(4)$ spin rotation. Especially, there exists a symmetric and featureless "pseudogap metal" with s…
We study the relationship between the pseudogap and Fermi-surface topology in the two-dimensional Hubbard model by means of the cellular dynamical mean-field theory. We find two possible mean-field metallic solutions on a broad range of interaction, doping and frustration: a conventional renormalized metal and an unconventional pseudogap metal. At half-filling, the conventional metal is more stable and displays an interaction-driven Mott metal-insulator transition. However, for large interaction and small doping, region that is relevant for cuprates, the pseudogap phase becomes the ground stat…
We present an exact ground state solution of a quantum dimer model introduced in Ref.[1], which features ordinary bosonic spin-singlet dimers as well as fermionic dimers that can be viewed as bound states of spinons and holons in a hole-doped resonating valence bond liquid. Interestingly, this model captures several essential properties of the metallic pseudogap phase in high-$T_c$ cuprate superconductors. We identify a line in parameter space where the exact ground state wave functions can be constructed at an arbitrary density of fermionic dimers. At this exactly solvable line the ground sta…
We present a simple modification of the standard U(1) slave boson construction for the single band t-J model which accounts for two-particle bound states of spinons and holons. This construction naturally gives rise to fractionalized Fermi liquid ground states, featuring small, hole-like pocket Fermi surfaces with an anisotropic quasiparticle weight in the absence of broken symmetries. In a specific parameter regime our approach maps the square lattice t-J model to a generalized quantum dimer model, which was introduced as a toy model for the metallic pseudogap phase in hole-doped cuprates in …
We propose that an extension of the exciton concept to doped Mott insulators offers a fruitful insight into challenging issues of the copper oxide superconductors. In our extension, new fermionic excitations called cofermions emerge in conjunction to generalized excitons. The cofermions hybridize with conventional quasiparticles. Then a hybridization gap opens, and is identified as the pseudogap observed in the underdoped cuprates. The resultant Fermi-surface reconstruction naturally explains a number of unusual properties of the underdoped cuprates, such as the Fermi arc and/or pocket formati…
We present theoretical study of electronic structure (spectral functions and Fermi surfaces) for incommensurate pseudogap and charge density wave (CDW) and commensurate CDW phases of quasi two dimensional diselenides 2H-TaSe2 and 2H-NbSe2. Incommensurate pseudogap regime is described within the scenario based on short-range order CDW fluctuations, considered within the static Gaussian random field model. In contrast e.g. to high-Tc cuprates layered dichalcogenides have several different CDW scattering vectors and electronic spectrum with two bands at the Fermi level. To this end we present the…
Cluster perturbation theory is applied to the two-dimensional Hubbard $t-t'-t''-U$ model to obtain doping and temperature dependent electronic spectral function with $4 \times 4$ and 12-site clusters. It is shown that evolution of the pseudogap and electronic dispersion with doping and temperature is similar and in both cases it is significantly influenced by spin-spin short-range correlations. When short-range magnetic order is weakened by doping or temperature and Hubbard-I like electronic dispersion becomes more pronounced, the Fermi arc turns into large Fermi surface and the pseudogap clos…
We discuss the two-channel Kondo problem with a pseudogap density of states, $ρ(\w)\propto|\w|^r$, of the bath fermions. Combining both analytical and numerical renormalization group techniques, we characterize the impurity phases and quantum phase transitions of the relevant Kondo and Anderson models. The line of stable points, corresponding to the overscreened non-Fermi liquid behavior of the metallic $r=0$ case, is replaced by a stable particle-hole symmetric intermediate-coupling fixed point for $0<r<\rmax\approx0.23$. For $r>\rmax$, this non-Fermi liquid phase disappears, and instead a cr…
Motivated by recent quantum oscillation observations in the underdoped high-temperature superconductors, the effect of the short-range antiferromagnetic correlations on the electronic properties of the short-ranged d-density wave state is investigated. At intermediate d-density wave correlations, the cross section of the energy dispersion at the Fermi energy consists of hole pockets and an electron pocket. It is argued that the electron pocket feature is smeared out by the effect of the short-range antiferromagnetic correlation, which could be the reason why any electron pockets have never bee…
We address the phenomenon of critical Kondo destruction in pseudogap Bose-Fermi Anderson and Kondo quantum impurity models. These models describe a localized level coupled both to a fermionic bath having a density of states that vanishes like |ε|^r at the Fermi energy (ε=0) and, via one component of the impurity spin, to a bosonic bath having a sub-Ohmic spectral density proportional to |ω|^s. Each bath is capable by itself of suppressing the Kondo effect at a continuous quantum phase transition. We study the interplay between these two mechanisms for Kondo destruction using continuous-time qu…
We suggest a model for electronic structure of cuprate superconductors that makes it possible to describe evolution of this structure with the doping and provides a new explanation for a number of typical features of cuprates, including the pseudogap and the Fermi arcs. According to this model, the unique electronic structure of cuprates is favorable for the formation of two-atomic negative-U centers (NUCs) and realization of a peculiar mechanism of the electron-electron interaction.
We describe a solvable model of a quantum transition in a single band model involving a change in the size of the electron Fermi surface without any symmetry breaking. In a model with electron density $1-p$, we find a 'large' Fermi surface state with the conventional Luttinger volume $1-p$ of electrons for $p>p_c$, and a first order transition to a 'small' Fermi surface state with a non-Luttinger volume $p$ of holes for $p<p_c$. As required by extended Luttinger theorems, the small Fermi surface state also has fractionalized spinon excitations. The model has electrons with strong local interac…
The pseudogap Anderson impurity model provides a classic example of an essentially local quantum phase transition. Here we study its single-particle dynamics in the vicinity of the symmetric quantum critical point (QCP) separating generalized Fermi liquid and local moment phases, via the local moment approach. Both phases are shown to be characterized by a low-energy scale that vanishes at the QCP; and the universal scaling spectra, on all energy scales, are obtained analytically. The spectrum precisely at the QCP is also obtained; its form showing clearly the non-Fermi liquid, interacting nat…
We calculate spectral functions within the t-J model as relevant to cuprates in the regime from low to optimum doping. On the basis of equations of motion for projected operators an effective spin-fermion coupling is derived. The self energy due to short-wavelength transverse spin fluctuations is shown to lead to a modified selfconsistent Born approximation, which can explain strong asymmetry between hole and electron quasiparticles. The coupling to long-wavelength longitudinal spin fluctuations governs the low-frequency behavior and results in a pseudogap behavior, which at low doping effecti…
A further discussion of the vortex fluid in the cuprate high Tc superconductors is presented. The crucial property of incompressibility towards the addition of net vorticity, leading to the marked nonlinearity of the response functions, is justified from first principles. We also discuss the Fermi Arc phenomenon of Campuzano as a consequence of the time-fluctuating phase in the vortex fluid.
Since the discovery of the pseudogap and Fermi arc states in underdoped cuprates, the understanding of such non-Fermi-liquid states and the associated violation of Luttinger's theorem have been the central theme in correlated electron systems. However, still lacking is a well-accepted theoretical framework to unambiguously explain these metallic states that are clearly beyond Landau's Fermi liquid and Luttinger's theorem of a Fermi surface and electron filling. Here, we design a lattice model of orthogonal metals with fermion and Ising matter fields coupled to topological order and, by solving…
Magnetic impurities coupled to both fermionic and bosonic baths or to a fermionic bath with pseudogap density of states, described by the Fermi-Bose Kondo and pseudogap Kondo models, display non-trivial intermediate coupling fixed points associated with critical local-moment fluctuations and local non-Fermi liquid behavior. Based on renormalization group together with a renormalized perturbation expansion around the free-impurity limit, we calculate various impurity properties in the vicinity of those intermediate-coupling fixed points. In particular, we compute the conduction electron T matri…
The angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy studies on cuprates in the pseudogap region reveal an extraordinary topological transition in which the ground state changes from one with a normal Fermi surface to one with four Fermi points. Such a state is not possible without some symmetry breaking, which allows interference between one-particle basis states that is normally forbidden. We also show that the experimental results are quantitatively given without any free parameters by a theory and discuss the implications of the results.
The effect of doping in the two-dimensional Hubbard model is studied within finite temperature exact diagonalization combined with cluster dynamical mean field theory. By employing a mixed basis involving cluster sites and bath molecular orbitals for the projection of the lattice Green's function onto 2x2 clusters, a considerably more accurate description of the low frequency properties of the self-energy is achieved than in a pure site picture. The transition from Fermi-liquid to non-Fermi-liquid behavior for decreasing hole doping is studied as a function of Coulomb energy, next-nearest neig…
The "states-non-conserving" fermion density of states (DOS), deduced from the specific heat of hole-doped cuprates, could arise from a Kondo or heavy fermion-like DOS being suppressed by anti-ferromagnetic spin fluctuations. The large Fermi surface predicted by band theory and observed experimentally, is still expected for zero pseudogap, but with an effective mass corresponding to a Kondo temperature ~ 800 K. A finite pseudogap could divide it into Fermi arcs. Theoretical results for the asymmetric Anderson model can account for the experimental Wilson ratio.
Reconstruction of the Fermi surface of high-temperature superconducting cuprates in the pseudogap state is analyzed within nearly exactly solvable model of the pseudogap state, induced by short-range order fluctuations of antiferromagnetic (AFM, spin density wave (SDW), or similar charge density wave (CDW)) order parameter, competing with superconductivity. We explicitly demonstrate the evolution from "Fermi arcs" (on the "large" Fermi surface) observed in ARPES experiments at relatively high temperatures (when both the amplitude and phase of density waves fluctuate randomly) towards formation…
We consider a magnetic impurity coupled to both fermionic quasiparticles with a pseudogap density of states and bosonic spin fluctuations. Using renormalization group and large-N calculations we investigate the phase diagram of the resulting Fermi-Bose Kondo model. We show that the Kondo temperature is strongly reduced by low-energy spin fluctuations, and make connections to experiments in cuprate superconductors. Furthermore we derive an exact exponent for the critical behavior of the conduction electron T matrix, and propose our findings to be relevant for certain scenarios of local quantum …
The nature of the pseudogap phase remains a major barrier to our understanding of cuprate high-temperature superconductivity. Whether or not this metallic phase is defined by any of the reported broken symmetries, the topology of its Fermi surface remains a fundamental open question. Here we use angle-dependent magnetoresistance (ADMR) to measure the Fermi surface of the cuprate Nd-LSCO. Above the critical doping $p^*$ -- outside of the pseudogap phase -- we fit the ADMR data and extract a Fermi surface geometry that is in quantitative agreement with angle-resolved photoemission. Below $p^*$ -…
We show that the unusual observations of a pseudogap in the normal state of underdoped Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8+delta (BiSCO) using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is consistent with a new band structure for the cuprate superconductors in which the x2-y2 and z2 bands are seen to cross at the Fermi level. Limitations in the experimental method prevent the narrow 3D z2 band from being fully resolved, leading instead to a broad background with "stepfunction" character. As a consequence, the Fermi surface is mis-assigned and a pseudogap of approximately d-wave symmetry develops.
The pseudogap phase in the cuprates is a most unusual state of matter: it is a metal, but its Fermi surface is broken up into disconnected segments known as Fermi arcs. Using angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we show that the anisotropy of the pseudogap in momentum space and the resulting arcs depend only on the ratio T/T*(x), where T*(x) is the temperature below which the pseudogap first develops at a given hole doping x. In particular, the arcs collapse linearly with T/T* and extrapolate to zero extent as T goes to 0. This suggests that the T = 0 pseudogap state is a nodal liquid, a…
The properties of cuprate high-temperature superconductors are largely shaped by competing phases whose nature is often a mystery. Chiefly among them is the pseudogap phase, which sets in at a doping $p^*$ that is material-dependent. What determines $p^*$ is currently an open question. Here we show that the pseudogap cannot open on an electron-like Fermi surface, and can only exist below the doping $p_{FS}$ at which the large Fermi surface goes from hole-like to electron-like, so that $p^*$ $\leq$ $p_{FS}$. We derive this result from high-magnetic-field transport measurements in La$_{1.6-x}$Nd…
The unclear relationship between cuprate superconductivity and the pseudogap state remains an impediment to understanding the high transition temperature (Tc) superconducting mechanism. Here we employ magnetic-field-dependent scanning tunneling microscopy to provide phase-sensitive proof that d-wave superconductivity coexists with the pseudogap on the antinodal Fermi surface of an overdoped cuprate. Furthermore, by tracking the hole doping (p) dependence of the quasiparticle interference pattern within a single Bi-based cuprate family, we observe a Fermi surface reconstruction slightly below o…
We show that the Néel transition and spin fluctuations near the Néel transition in planar cuprates can be described by an SU(2) invariant relativistic four-fermion model in 2+1 dimensions. Features of the pseudogap phenomenon are naturally described by the appearance of an anomalous dimension for the spinon propagator.
High-temperature superconductivity in iron-arsenic materials (pnictides) near an antiferromagnetic phase raises the possibility of spin-fluctuation-mediated pairing. However, the interplay between antiferromagnetic fluctuations and superconductivity remains unclear in the underdoped regime, which is closer to the antiferromagnetic phase. Here we report that the superconducting gap of the underdoped pnictides scales linearly with the transition temperature, and that a distinct pseudogap coexisting with the SC gap develops on underdoping. This pseudogap occurs on Fermi surface sheets connected b…
Doping dependence of the electronic structure of La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ (LSCO) has been systematically studied in a series of photoemission measurements. The unusual spectral features in the underdoped regime are attributed to the formation of dynamical stripes and the opening of large and small pseudogaps.
We study the frequency-dependent structure of electronic self-energy in the pseudogap and superconducting states of the two-dimensional Hubbard model. We present the self-energy calculated with the cellular dynamical mean-field theory systematically in the space of temperature, electron density, and interaction strength. We show that the low-frequency part of the self-energy is well represented by a simple equation, which describes the transitions of an electron to and from a hidden fermionic state. By fitting the numerical data with this simple equation, we determine the parameters characteri…
