Entropic Origin of Pseudogap Physics and a Mott-Slater Transition in Cuprates

TL;DR

This paper introduces a bosonic entropy-based framework to explain the pseudogap in cuprates, revealing a Mott-Slater transition driven by spectral weight shifts and predicting supertransitions between different order parameters.

Contribution

It presents a novel entropic approach to pseudogap physics and predicts a tunable Mott-Slater transition with emergent spin-frustrated states.

Findings

Spectral weight shifts near Van Hove singularity drive pseudogap transition.

Extended short-range order causes slow magnetic correlation growth.

Tuning hopping parameters can induce a Mott-Slater transition.

Abstract

We propose a new approach to understand the origin of the pseudogap in the cuprates, in terms of bosonic entropy. The near-simultaneous softening of a large number of different $q$-bosons yields an extended range of short-range order, wherein the growth of magnetic correlations with decreasing temperature $T$ is anomalously slow. These entropic effects cause the spectral weight associated with the Van Hove singularity (VHS) to shift rapidly and nearly linearly toward half filling at higher $T$, consistent with a picture of the VHS driving the pseudogap transition at a temperature $\sim T^*$. As a byproduct, we develop an order-parameter classification scheme that predicts supertransitions between families of order parameters. As one example, we find that by tuning the hopping parameters, it is possible to drive the cuprates across a {\it transition between Mott and Slater physics}, where a spin-frustrated state emerges at the crossover.