Superconductivity and intra-unit-cell electronic nematic phase in the three-band model of cuprates
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THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL B
Regular Article
Superconductivity and intra-unit-cell electronic nematic phase in the three-band model of cuprates Michal Zegrodnik 1,a , Andrzej Biborski 1 , and Jozef Spalek 2 1
2
Academic Centre for Materials and Nanotechnology, AGH University of Science and Technology, Al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland Institute of Theoretical Physics, Jagiellonian University, ul. Lojasiewicza 11, 30-348 Krakow, Poland Received 8 June 2020 / Accepted 17 August 2020 Published online 21 September 2020 c The Author(s) 2020. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract. The intra-unit-cell nematic phase is studied within the three-band Emery model of the cuprates by using the diagrammatic expansion of the Gutzwiller wave function (DE-GWF). According to our analysis a spontaneous rotational (C4 ) symmetry breaking of the electronic wave function, leading to the nematic behavior, can appear due to electron correlations induced mainly by the onsite Coulomb repulsion, even in the absence of the corresponding intersite oxygen–oxygen repulsion term. The latter has been considered as the triggering factor of the nematic state formation in a number of previous studies. Also, we show that at the transition to the nematic phase, electron concentration transfer from d- to p-orbitals takes place, apart from the usually discussed px /py polarization. The nematicity appears in a similar doping range as the paired phase, showing that both phases may have a common origin, even though they compete. As we show a coexistence region of both superconductivity and nematicity appears in a relatively wide doping range. The results are discussed in view of the experimental findings corresponding to the relation between nematicity and pseudogap behavior.
1 Introduction A number of symmetry-broken states appear in the cuprate high temperature superconductors. One of the key issues is to identify the mechanism of their creation and to what extent they are interrelated. The nematic phase which is discussed in the context of cuprates [1] and titanium-oxypnictides [2], corresponds to the four-fold (C4 ) rotational symmetry breaking with the preservation of the translational symmetry. Due to the structural LTT phase transition in La- based cuprates or the orthorhombic distortion in YBCO, it is difficult to validate the intrinsic nematic behavior of the electronic wave function, as the C4 symmetry is already broken by the crystal lattice. Nevertheless, it has been argued that a significant contribution to the nematicity is distinct from the effects related to the lattice [3,4]. The STM measurements on Bi2212 and NCCOC seem to show a more direct evidence of electronic nematicity, which is not related to the structure [1,5]. This suggests that one of the generic features of the copper-based compounds may be the intrinsic susceptibility towards the C4 symmetry breaking of the electronic wave function in the CuO2 planes. It has been established that the nematic ordering in the cuprates arises fro
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