Effects of Charge Density Modulation on Incommensurate Antiferromagnetism: Ginzburg-Landau Study

TL;DR

This study uses Ginzburg-Landau theory to show that static charge density modulations, including stripe patterns, can stabilize incommensurate antiferromagnetism in high-$T_c$ superconductors near hole density 1/8, affecting incommensurability saturation.

Contribution

It demonstrates, through a Ginzburg-Landau approach, that static charge density modulations can stabilize incommensurate antiferromagnetic order, a novel insight into the interplay of charge and spin orders.

Findings

Charge density modulations can stabilize IC-AF order.

Stripe patterns influence the incommensurability saturation.

LTT structure slightly increases the incommensurability.

Abstract

In the vicinity of hole density, 1/8, La-based high-$T_{c}$ superconductors exhibit long-range order of incommensurate antiferromagnetism (IC-AF). Motivated by this observation, we explore the possible stabilization of IC-AF ordering due to the existence of static charge density modulation (CDM). We use Ginzburg-Landau free energy based on the mean field theory of the t-J model. It is shown numerically that three kinds of CDM including a stripe pattern can stabilize static IC-AF ordering. We also argue that such CDMs can cause the saturation of the degree of incommensurability ($\eta$) as a function of hole density for IC-AF fluctuation. In our framework a principal effect of low-temperature tetragonal (LTT) structure is just to increase $\eta$ of IC-AF slightly larger only for the stripe pattern.