Coherence and pairing in a doped Mott insulator: Application to the cuprates

TL;DR

This paper investigates the coherence and pairing phenomena in doped Mott insulators using slave boson gauge theory, revealing a non-Fermi liquid regime with pseudogap features relevant to cuprate superconductors.

Contribution

It introduces a new understanding of the coherence scale and non-Fermi liquid behavior in doped Mott insulators, especially in the context of cuprates.

Findings

Identification of a non-Fermi liquid regime with linear-in-T scattering rate.

Prediction of a pseudogap state with Fermi arcs near nodal directions.

Demonstration that coherence scale is lower than mean field predictions.

Abstract

The issues of single particle coherence and its interplay with singlet pairing are studied within the slave boson gauge theory of a doped Mott insulator. Prior work by one of us (T. Senthil, arXiv:0804.1555) showed that the coherence scale below which Landau quasiparticles emerge is parametrically lower than that identified in the slave boson mean field theory. Here we study the resulting new non-fermi liquid intermediate temperature regime characterized by a single particle scattering rate that is linear in temperature ($T$). In the presence of a d-wave pair amplitude this leads to a pseudogap state with $T$ dependent Fermi arcs near the nodal direction. Implications for understanding the cuprates are discussed.