Charge 2e Boson Underlies Two - Fluid Model of the Pseudogap in Cuprate Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper proposes a two-fluid model for the pseudogap phase in cuprate superconductors, where a charge 2e boson bound state explains the temperature-independent and thermally activated carrier components, aligning with experimental pseudogap data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel two-fluid model based on a charge 2e boson to explain the pseudogap and strange metal behavior in cuprates, derived from an effective low-energy theory of doped Mott insulators.

Findings

Carrier density has temperature-independent and thermally activated parts.

Thermally activated unbinding causes T-linear resistivity.

Doping dependence of binding energy matches pseudogap energy scale.

Abstract

Starting from the effective low energy theory of a doped Mott insulator, we show that the effective carrier density in the underdoped regime agrees with a two - fluid description. Namely, it has distinct temperature independent and thermally activated components. We identify the thermally activated component as the bound state of a hole and a charge 2e boson, which occurs naturally in the effective theory. The thermally activated unbinding of this state leads to the strange metal and subsequent $T-$linear resistivity. We find that the doping dependence of the binding energy is in excellent agreement with the experimentally determined pseudogap energy scale in cuprate superconductors.