Distinguishing Patterns of Charge Order: Stripes or Checkerboards

TL;DR

This paper discusses methods to analyze experimental data to distinguish between stripe and checkerboard charge order in cuprates, highlighting that many experiments favor stripe order, though some cases remain uncertain due to short correlation lengths.

Contribution

The paper introduces data analysis techniques to infer ideal order patterns in disordered systems and applies them to differentiate charge order types in cuprates.

Findings

Experiments often indicate stripe order in cuprates.

Short correlation lengths lead to uncertainty in order identification.

Methods help infer ideal order from disordered experimental data.

Abstract

In two dimensions, quenched disorder always rounds transitions involving the breaking of spatial symmetries so, in practice, it can often be difficult to infer what form the symmetry breaking would take in the ``ideal,'' zero disorder limit. We discuss methods of data analysis which can be useful for making such inferences, and apply them to the problem of determining whether the preferred order in the cuprates is ``stripes'' or ``checkerboards.'' In many cases we show that the experiments clearly indicate stripe order, while in others (where the observed correlation length is short), the answer is presently uncertain.