Electronic polymers and soft-matter-like broken symmetries in underdoped cuprates

TL;DR

This paper proposes that in underdoped cuprates, doped holes form 'electronic polymers' which condense into various ordered states, revealing complex phases with broken symmetries that align with experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of electronic polymers in cuprates and demonstrates their role in forming smectic, Wigner crystal, and nematic phases with broken symmetries.

Findings

Electronic polymers form in underdoped cuprates.

Polymer melt condenses into smectic and Wigner crystal states.

Disorder leads to nematic order and persistent symmetry breaking.

Abstract

Empirical evidence in heavy fermion, pnictide, and other systems suggests that unconventional superconductivity appears associated to some form of real-space electronic order. For the cuprates, despite several proposals, the emergence of order in the phase diagram between the commensurate antiferromagnetic state and the superconducting state is not well understood. Here we show that in this regime doped holes assemble in "electronic polymers." Within a Monte Carlo study we find, that in clean systems by lowering the temperature the polymer melt condenses first in a smectic state and then in a Wigner crystal both with the addition of inversion symmetry breaking. Disorder blurs the positional order leaving a robust inversion symmetry breaking and a nematic order, accompanied by vector chiral spin order and with the persistence of a thermodynamic transition. Such electronic phases, whose properties are reminiscent of soft-matter physics, produce charge and spin responses in good accord with experiments.