arXiv subjects

V. J. Emery

Publications and source records attributed to V. J. Emery.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv1996

Spin-Gap Proximity Effect Mechanism of High Temperature Superconductivity

When holes are doped into an antiferromagnetic insulator they form a slowly fluctuating array of ``topological defects'' (metallic stripes) in which the motion of the holes exhibits a self-organized quasi one-dimensional electronic character. The accompanying lateral confinement of the intervening Mott-insulating regions induces a spin gap or pseudogap in the environment of the stripes. We present a theory of underdoped high temperature superconductors and show that there is a {\it local} separation of spin and charge, and that the mobile holes on an individual stripe acquire a spin gap via pair hopping between the stripe and its environment; i.e. via a magnetic analog of the usual superconducting proximity effect. In this way a high pairing scale without a large mass renormalization is established despite the strong Coulomb repulsion between the holes. Thus the {\it mechanism} of pairing is the generation of a spin gap in spatially-confined {\it Mott-insulating} regions of the material in the proximity of the metallic stripes. At non-vanishing stripe densities, Josephson coupling between stripes produces a dimensional crossover to a state with long-range superconducting phase coherence. This picture is established by obtaining exact and well-controlled approximate solutions of a model of a one-dimensional electron gas in an active environment. An extended discussion of the experimental evidence supporting the relevance of these results to the cuprate superconductors is given.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv1996

Topological Doping of Correlated Insulators

A material which is an insulator entirely because of interaction effects is called a correlated insulator. Examples are trans-polyacetylene and the cuprate high temperature superconductors. Whereas doping of a band insulator results in a shift of the chemical potential into the conduction or valence band, doping of a correlated insulator produces fundamental changes in the electronic density of states itself. We have found that a general feature of doping a correlated insulator is the generation of topological defects; solitons in one-dimension and anti-phase domain walls in higher dimensions. We review the well known features of this process in polyacetylene, and describe the experimental evidence that the analogous features are seen in the cuprate superconductors. We also distinguish the case in which the doping-induced features can be viewed as a Fermi surface instability, as in polyacetylene, and the more usual case in which they are a consequence of a Coulomb frustrated electronic tendency to phase separation. Paper presented at the Sixtieth Birthday Symposium for Alan J. Heeger, January 20, 1996

cond-mat↗

arXiv1996

Implications of Charge Ordering for Single-Particle Properties of High-Tc Superconductors

The consequences of disordered charge stripes and antiphase spin domains for the properties of the high-temperature superconductors are studied. We focus on angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and optical conductivity, and show that the many unusual features of the experimentally observed spectra can be understood naturally in this way. This interpretation of the data, when combined with evidence from neutron scattering and NMR, suggests that disordered and fluctuating stripe phases are a common feature of high-temperature superconductors.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1995

Exact Results for 1D Kondo Lattice from Bosonization

We find a solvable limit to the problem of the 1D electron gas interacting with a lattice of Kondo scattering centers. In this limit, we present exact results for the problems of incommensurate filling, commensurate filling, impurity vacancy states, and the commensurate-incommensurate transition.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1995

Avoided Critical Behavior in a Uniformly Frustrated System

We study the effects of weak long-ranged antiferromagnetic interactions of strength $Q$ on a spin model with predominant short-ranged ferromagnetic interactions. In three dimensions, this model exhibits an avoided critical point in the sense that the critical temperature $T_c(Q=0)$ is strictly greater than $\lim_{Q\to 0} T_c(Q)$. The behavior of this system at temperatures less than $T_c(Q=0)$ is controlled by the proximity to the avoided critical point. We also quantize the model in a novel way to study the interplay between charge-density wave and superconducting order.

cond-mat↗