Spatial and temporal probes in inhomogeneous systems: Theory and experiment

TL;DR

This paper discusses the challenges and methods for analyzing inhomogeneous systems like cuprates, combining theory and experiment to understand their symmetry properties and electronic states.

Contribution

It provides a group-theoretical framework for describing inhomogeneities in cuprates, linking symmetry breaking to pairing phenomena and experimental observables.

Findings

Symmetry analysis explains observed inhomogeneities in real and k-space.

Predicted symmetry breaking related to pairing is experimentally verifiable.

The approach offers a quantitative description of bound and unbound electronic states.

Abstract

The experimental and theoretical challenges posed by the study of dynamically inhomogeneous systems are outlined in the context of cuprates and other oxides. Considering the pitfalls in the single-component approach to the analysis of inhomogeneous systems, the effect of either temporal or spatial averaging by different experiments is discussed. A group-theoretical symmetry analysis of the observed inhomogeneities in real space and k-space observed in the cuprates is shown to lead to a quantitatively verifiable description of the inhomogeneous state, comprising of bound singlet pairs in the ground state and unbound fermions in the excited state. The predicted symmetry breaking associated with pairing is shown to be verifiable experimentally.