Elucidation of Spin-Correlations, Fermi Surface and Pseudogap in a Copper Oxide Superconductor

Abstract

First-principles calculations for underdoped La2−xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) have revealed a Fermi surface consisting of spin-triplet (KS) particles at the antinodal Fermi-pockets and spin-singlet (SS) particles at the nodal Fermi-arcs in the presence of AF local order. By performing a unique method of calculating the electronic-spin state of overdoped LSCO and by measurement of the spin-correlation length by neutron inelastic scattering, the origin of the phase-diagram, including the pseudogap phase in the high temperature superconductor, Sr-doped copper-oxide LSCO, has been elucidated. We have theoretically solved the long-term problem as to why the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has not been able to observe Fermi pockets in the Fermi surface of LSCO. As a result, we show that the pseudogap region is bounded below the characteristic temperature T*(x) and above the superconducting transition temperature Tc(x) in the T vs. x phase diagram, where both the AF order and the KS particles in the Fermi pockets vanish at T*(x), whilst KS particles contribute to d-wave superconductivity below Tc. We also show that the relationship T*(xc) = Tc(xc) holds at xc = 0.30, which is consistent with ARPES experiments. At T*(x), a phase transition occurs from the pseudogap phase to an unusual metallic phase in which only the SS particles exist.