Unusual electronic ordering in the pseudogap phase of underdoped cuprate superconductors

TL;DR

This paper investigates the nature of electronic states in the pseudogap phase of underdoped cuprate superconductors using a T-matrix approach, revealing that the pseudogap influences quasiparticle interference and charge ordering phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic T-matrix framework to analyze the pseudogap phase, connecting it to observed quasiparticle interference and charge order patterns.

Findings

Quasiparticle interference octet phenomenology persists in the pseudogap phase.

The pseudogap partially suppresses spectral weight at the antinodal region.

Checkerboard charge order appears only in the pseudogap phase.

Abstract

The pseudogap phase of the underdoped cuprate superconductors harbours diverse manifestations of different ordered electronic-states, and then these ordered electronic-states coexist or compete with superconductivity. Here starting from the microscopic electron propagator, the nature of the ordered electronic-states in the pseudogap phase is investigated within the $T$-matrix approach. This $T$-matrix is derived in terms of the inverse of matrix for various kinds of a single impurity, and then is used to evaluate the local density of states (LDOS) by the involvement of all the quasiparticle excitations and scattering processes. It is shown that a number of the anomalous properties in the underdoped cuprate superconductors is directly correlated to the opening of the normal-state pseudogap: (i) the structure of the microscopic octet scattering model generated by the normal-state pseudogap is essentially the same both in the superconducting (SC)-state and pseudogap phase, which naturally leads to that the quasiparticle scattering interference octet phenomenology observed in the SC-state exists in the pseudogap phase; (ii) however, the spectral weight at around the antinodal region in the SC-state is gapped out completely by both the SC gap and normal-state pseudogap, while it in the pseudogap phase is suppressed partially by the normal-state pseudogap, this directly leads to that the non-dispersive checkerboard charge ordering with a finite wave vector ${\bf Q}$ appears in the pseudogap phase only. The theory therefore also shows that the electronic-states affected by the normal-state pseudogap exhibit the LDOS modulation spectrum organization.