Competing orders in high-T_c superconductors

TL;DR

This paper models the competition between antiferromagnetic and superconducting orders in cuprate superconductors using a (2+1)-D U(1) gauge theory, revealing conditions for their coexistence based on gauge boson mass effects.

Contribution

It provides a field theoretical framework describing how gauge boson mass influences the competition and coexistence of AF and SC orders in high-T_c superconductors.

Findings

Chiral symmetry breaking occurs with small gauge boson mass.

Antiferromagnetic order emerges from fermion mass generation.

Coexistence of AF and SC orders is explained by gauge boson mass effects.

Abstract

Within a (2+1)-dimensional U(1) gauge field theory, after calculating the Dyson-Schwinger equation for fermion self-energy we find that chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) occurs if the gauge boson has a very small mass but is suppressed when the mass is larger than a critical value. In the CSB phase, the fermion acquires a dynamically generated mass, which leads to antiferromagnetic (AF) long-range order. Since in the superconducting (SC) state the gauge boson acquires a finite mass via Anderson-Higgs mechanism, we obtain a field theoretical description of the competition between the AF order and the SC order. As a compromise of this competition, there is a coexistence of these two orders in the bulk material of cuprate superconductors.