Two component spin-fermion model for high-$T_c$ cuprates: Applications to neutron scattering and ARPES experiments

TL;DR

This paper introduces a two-component spin-fermion model for high-$T_c$ cuprates that successfully explains neutron scattering data and ARPES features, highlighting the roles of local spins and itinerant fermions.

Contribution

The paper presents a minimal phenomenological model incorporating local spins and itinerant fermions, explaining experimental observations in high-$T_c$ cuprates.

Findings

Upward dispersion from local spin excitations

Downward dispersion from particle-hole fermion excitations

Resonance mode as a mixture of both degrees of freedom

Abstract

Motivated by neutron scattering experiments in the high-$T_c$ cuprates, we propose the two-component spin-fermion model as a minimal phenomenological model which has both local spins and itinerant fermions as independent degrees of freedom. Our calculations of the dynamic spin correlation function provide a successful description of the puzzling neutron experiment data and show that: (1) the upward dispersion branch of magnetic excitations is mostly due to the local spin excitations; (2) the downward dispersion branch is from collective particle-hole excitations of fermions; and (3) the resonance mode is a mixture of both degrees of freedom. Using the same model with the same set of parameters we calculated the renormalized quasiparticle dispersion and successfully reproduced one of the key features of the angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments, i.e., the high energy kink structure in the fermion quasiparticle dispersion, hence further support the two component spin-fermion phenomenology.