Gauge theory for the cuprates near optimal doping

Speaker: Harley Scammell, Harvard University

When: February 13, 2019 (Wed), 04:00PM to 05:00PM (add to my calendar)
Location: SCI 328
Hosted by: Julian Ingham

This event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.

We describe a 2+1 dimensional SU(2) gauge theory for the hole-doped cuprates. The gauge theory emerges upon fractionalization of the fluctuating incommensurate spin density waves. Our primary assumption is that all low energy fermionic excitations are gauge neutral and electron-like, while the spin density wave order is fractionalized into Higgs fields transforming as adjoints of the gauge SU(2). Under this assumption, we argue that the SU(2) adjoint Higgs theory is sufficiently rich to account for many key properties of the cuprates observed experimentally. In particular, this talk will focus on the elusive psuedogap phase and offer a description in terms of deconfined gauge theory.