Energy gaps in the failed high-Tc superconductor La1.875Ba0.125CuO4

TL;DR

This study uses advanced ARPES measurements to reveal that the pseudogap in La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 is not a simple d-wave gap but has two distinct components, indicating a dual nature and complex origin in this high-Tc superconductor.

Contribution

The paper provides new ARPES data showing the pseudogap's deviation from a simple d-wave form, highlighting its dual components and complex nature in La1.875Ba0.125CuO4.

Findings

Pseudogap contains a d-wave component near the node.

An additional enhanced component appears near the antinode.

The pseudogap exhibits a dual nature with different origins.

Abstract

A central issue on high-Tc superconductivity is the nature of the normal-state gap (pseudogap) in the underdoped regime and its relationship with superconductivity. Despite persistent efforts, theoretical ideas for the pseudogap evolve around fluctuating superconductivity, competing order and spectral weight suppression due to many-body effects. Recently, while some experiments in the superconducting state indicate a distinction between the superconducting gap and pseudogap, others in the normal state, either by extrapolation from high-temperature data or directly from La1.875Ba0.125CuO4 (LBCO-1/8) at low temperature, suggest the ground-state pseudogap is a single gap of d-wave form. Here we report angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) data from LBCO-1/8, collected with improved experimental conditions, that reveal the ground-state pseudogap has a pronounced deviation from the simple d-wave form. It contains two distinct components: a d-wave component within an extended region around the node and the other abruptly enhanced close to the antinode, pointing to a dual nature of the pseudogap in this failed high-Tc superconductor which involves a possible precursor pairing energy scale around the node and another of different but unknown origin near the antinode.