A short review of the recent progresses in the study of the cuprate superconductivity

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/abfa04

Abstract The last 15 years have witnessed important progresses in our understanding of the mechanism of superconductivity in the high-T_c cuprates. There is now strong evidence that the strange metal behavior is induced by the quantum critical fluctuation at the pseudogap end point, where the Fermi surface changes its topology from hole-like to electron-like. However, experiments show that the quantum critical behavior in the high-T_c cuprates is qualitatively different from that observed in the heavy Fermion systems and the iron-based superconductors, in both of which the quantum critical behavior can be attributed to the quantum phase transition toward a symmetry breaking phase. The fact that the pseudogap exists as a spectral gap without a corresponding symmetry breaking order, together with the fact that the strange metal behavior occurs as a quantum critical behavior without a corresponding symmetry breaking phase transition, exposes the central difficulty of the field: the lack of a universal low energy effective theory description of the high-T_c phenomenology beyond the Landau paradigm. Recent experiments imply that the dualism between the local moment and the itinerant quasiparticle character of the electron in the high-T_c cuprates may serve as an organizing principle to go beyond the Landau paradigm and may hold the key to the mystery of the pseudogap phenomena and the strange metal behavior. It is the purpose of this review to provide an introduction to these recent progresses in the study of the high-T_c cuprate superconductors and their implications on the construction of a coherent picture for the high-T_c problem.

Keywords: high-T_c superconductivity pseudogap phenomena strange metal behavior

Received: 25 March 2021
Revised: 16 April 2021
Accepted manuscript online: 21 April 2021

PACS:	05.70.Jk	(Critical point phenomena)
	74.72.-h	(Cuprate superconductors)

Fund: Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11674391) and the National Basic Research and Development Project of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0300504).

Corresponding Authors: Tao Li
E-mail: litao_phys@ruc.edu.cn

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Tao Li(李涛) A short review of the recent progresses in the study of the cuprate superconductivity 2021 Chin. Phys. B 30 100508

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[37] Here what concern us are those spectral anomalies that are beyond the description of the low energy effective theory. The local–itinerant dualism of electron in the high-Tc cuprates is the most important origin for such spectral anomalies at the intermediate to high energy range, for example, the waterfall structure and the prominent particle–hole asymmetry in the single particle spectrum, the ubitoqus non-Drude behavior in the optical conductivity spectrum, the Raman spectrum and the charge fluctuation spectrum, and the high energy continuum in the spin fluctuation spectrum which is up to now still poorly understood as a result of the limitation in the measurement resolution.
[38] Many previous studies have focused on the search of a ’paring glue’ from the emergent degree of freedom at low energy, such as the neutron resonance mode, but have forgotten the fact that such emergent degree of freedom appears on the background of anomalous dynamics at the intermediate to high energy range, which may have a closer relation with the mechanism of superconductivity in the high-Tc cupartes. A more detailed analysis on this point can be found in Ref.[35].

[1]	Mottness, phase string, and high-T_c superconductivity Jing-Yu Zhao(赵靖宇) and Zheng-Yu Weng(翁征宇). Chin. Phys. B, 2022, 31(8): 087104.

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