Image of the Energy Gap Anisotropy in the Vibrational Spectum of a High Temperature Superconductor

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel neutron scattering method to analyze the anisotropy of the energy gap in high-temperature superconductors, aiming to distinguish between s-wave and d-wave symmetries and map the gap across the Fermi surface.

Contribution

It proposes a new experimental approach using inelastic neutron scattering to determine the gap anisotropy and symmetry in layered high-Tc superconductors.

Findings

Method to distinguish s-wave and d-wave gaps

Potential to map gap distribution on Fermi surface

Guidelines for experimental implementation

Abstract

We present a new method of determining the anisotropy of the gap function in layered high-Tc superconductors. Careful inelastic neutron scattering measurements at low temperature of the phonon dispersion curves in the (100) direction in La_(1.85)Sr_(.15)CuO_4 would determine whether the gap is predominately s-wave or d-wave. We also propose an experiment to determine the gap at each point on a quasi-two-dimensional Fermi surface.