Intertwined Orders and the Physics of High Temperature Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper discusses the complex interplay of various electronic orders in high temperature superconductors, emphasizing the role of intertwined orders like pair-density waves in understanding their phase diagrams.

Contribution

It provides a phenomenological overview of intertwined orders and their significance in quantum materials exhibiting high temperature superconductivity.

Findings

Identification of intertwined orders as key to understanding phase diagrams

Discussion of pair-density waves as a manifestation of intertwined orders

Analysis of strange metal behavior in doped Mott insulators

Abstract

Complex phase diagrams are generic feature of quantum materials that display high temperature superconductivity. In addition to d-wave superconductivity (or other unconventional states), these phase diagrams typically include various forms of charge-ordered phases, including charge-density-waves and/or spin-density waves, and electronic nematic states. In most cases these phases have critical temperatures comparable in magnitude to that of the superconducting state, and appear in a "pseudo-gap" regime. In these systems the high temperature state is not a good metal with well-defined quasiparticles but a "strange metal". These states typically arise from doping a strongly correlated Mott insulator. With my collaborators we have identified these behaviors as a problem with "Intertwined Orders". A Pair-density wave is a type of superconducting state which embodies the physics of intertwined orders. Here I discus the phenomenology of intertwined orders and the quantum materials that are known to display these behaviors.