Reply to Comment on the paper "Pairing mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity: Experimental constraints (arXiv:1012.2368)"

TL;DR

This paper defends the authors' experimental findings that phonons are the main pairing mechanism in high-temperature cuprate superconductors and clarifies the pairing symmetry as extended s-wave or nodeless s-wave, countering criticisms.

Contribution

It provides a rebuttal to criticisms by reaffirming experimental evidence supporting phonon-mediated pairing and specific pairing symmetries in cuprates.

Findings

Phonons play a predominant role in pairing mechanism.

Bulk pairing symmetry is extended s-wave or nodeless s-wave.

Criticisms are unsupported by experimental evidence.

Abstract

In our recent paper entitled "Pairing mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity: Experimental constraints" (to be published in Physica Scripta, arXiv:1012.2368), we review some crucial experiments that place strong constraints on the microscopic pairing mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. In particular, we show that phonons rather than spin-fluctuation play a predominant role in the microscopic pairing mechanism. We further show that the intrinsic pairing symmetry in the bulk is not d-wave, but extended s-wave (having eight line nodes) in hole-doped cuprates and nodeless s-wave in electron-doped cuprates. In contrast, the author of the Comment (to be published in Physica Scripta) argues that our conclusions are unconvincing and even misleading. In response to the criticisms in the Comment, we further show that our conclusions are well supported by experiments and his criticisms are lack of scientific ground.