Fluctuating orders and quenched randomness in the cuprates

TL;DR

This study investigates how quenched disorder affects intertwined charge-density wave and superconducting orders in cuprates, revealing differences between theoretical predictions and experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a classical Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson model with quenched disorder to analyze charge-density wave and superconducting order interplay in cuprates, using large-N and Monte Carlo methods.

Findings

Charge-density wave structure factor peaks decrease with temperature in some regimes.

Nematic correlation length can be shorter than charge-density wave correlation length.

Theoretical results show differences from experimental temperature dependence of charge order.

Abstract

We study a quasi-2D classical Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson effective field theory in the presence of quenched disorder in which incommensurate charge-density wave and superconducting orders are intertwined. The disorder precludes long-range charge-density wave order, but not superconducting or nematic order. We select three representative sets of input parameters and compute the corresponding charge-density wave structure factors using both large-$N$ techniques and classical Monte Carlo simulations. Where nematicity and superconductivity coexist at low temperature, the peak height of the charge-density wave structure factor decreases monotonically as a function of increasing temperature, unlike what is seen in X-ray experiments on YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$. Conversely, where the thermal evolution of the charge-density wave structure factor qualitatively agrees with experiments, the nematic correlation length, computed to one-loop order, is shorter than the charge-density wave correlation length.