Topological Transition in the Fermi Surface of Cuprate Superconductors in the Pseudogap Regime

TL;DR

This paper reports a topological transition in the Fermi surface of cuprate superconductors within the pseudogap regime, revealing a change from a normal Fermi surface to four Fermi points, supported by experimental data and theoretical analysis.

Contribution

It demonstrates a symmetry-breaking mechanism causing a topological transition in cuprates and provides a parameter-free theoretical explanation of experimental observations.

Findings

Observation of a transition from a normal Fermi surface to four Fermi points

Quantitative agreement between theory and ARPES data without free parameters

Implication of symmetry breaking in the pseudogap regime

Abstract

The angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy studies on cuprates in the pseudogap region reveal an extraordinary topological transition in which the ground state changes from one with a normal Fermi surface to one with four Fermi points. Such a state is not possible without some symmetry breaking, which allows interference between one-particle basis states that is normally forbidden. We also show that the experimental results are quantitatively given without any free parameters by a theory and discuss the implications of the results.