Failure of Scattering Interference in the Pseudogap State of Cuprate Superconductors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that scattering interference models cannot explain the energy-independent patterns observed in STM experiments on cuprate pseudogap states, implying a different origin such as electronic ordering.

Contribution

The study shows that scattering interference models are inconsistent with experimental observations, indicating the need to consider alternative explanations like electronic orderings in the pseudogap regime.

Findings

Scattering interference patterns vary with energy, contradicting experiments.

STM patterns are likely due to electronic ordering, not scattering interference.

Models fail to reproduce the energy-independent wavelength observed in experiments.

Abstract

We calculate scattering interference patterns for various electronic states proposed for the pseudogap regime of the cuprate superconductors. The scattering interference models all produce patterns whose wavelength changes as a function of energy, in contradiction to the energy-independent wavelength seen by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments in the pseudogap state. This suggests that the patterns seen in STM local density of states measurements are not due to scattering interference, but are rather the result of some form of ordering.