Reply to comment by Y. Ando on "Onset of Boson Mode at the Superconducting Critical Point of Underdoped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_y$" by N. Doiron-Leyraud et al

TL;DR

This paper responds to critiques about phonon scattering and data fitting in low-temperature heat transport studies of YBa₂Cu₃O₇₋ₓ, clarifying that new data and analysis methods address these concerns.

Contribution

The authors provide new data from a twin-free sample and introduce an analysis method that avoids fitting, resolving previous issues raised.

Findings

Twin-free sample data confirms previous results

Analysis method eliminates the need for fitting

Concerns about phonon scattering and fitting are addressed

Abstract

In a recent Comment [arXiv:0711.4654], Y. Ando raises two valid issues in relation to our low-temperature heat transport study of YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_y$ across the insulator-to-superconductor boundary: 1) the possible role of twin boundaries in scattering phonons; 2) the best fitting procedure for extracting a fermionic (linear) term from the data. In this Reply, we show that both concerns can be laid to rest by 1) using new data from a tetragonal (twin-free) sample, and 2) using an analysis that does not involve any fitting.