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arXiv:2309.02695

Correlated BCS wavefunction approach to unconventional superconductors

Pengfei Li, Kun Jiang, Jiangping Hu

Published Sep 6, 2023• 1 citation
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Abstract

We propose a modified BCS wavefunction as the ground state of a correlated superconductor with the correlation specified between $k$ and $-k$ electrons in the reciprocal space. Owing to this correlation, low-energy excitations are not conventional BCS Bogoliubov quasiparticles. They display at least four poles in the Green's function and their particle-hole weights in the tunneling and photon-emission spectrum become asymmetric. The superfluid density or superfluid stiffness also deviates from the BCS predictions with finite paramagnetic terms inside the total diamagnetic response. Moreover, a $d$-wave correlated pairing state becomes robust against weak disorders. Hence, this state can explain many mysterious features observed in unconventional superconductors like cuprates.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2309.02695

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We propose a modified BCS wavefunction as the ground state of a correlated superconductor with the correlation specified between kkk and −k-k−k electrons in the reciprocal space. Owing to this correlation, low-energy excitations are not conventional BCS Bogoliubov quasiparticles. They display at least four poles in the Green's function and their particle-hole weights in the tunneling and photon-emission spectrum become asymmetric. The superfluid density or superfluid stiffness also deviates from the BCS predictions with finite paramagnetic terms inside the total diamagnetic response. Moreover, a ddd-wave correlated pairing state becomes robust against weak disorders. Hence, this state can explain many mysterious features observed in unconventional superconductors like cuprates.
One of the primary reasons that superconductivity in underdoped cuprates is enigmatic is that it emerges from an incoherent Fermi-arc state, so the applicability of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory is questionable. Here we approach this problem by investigating unconventional ddd-wave superconductivity in a recently proposed solvable model for strongly correlated Fermi arcs. We show analytically that the exact incorporation of Fermi arcs fundamentally modifies the BCS equations, which enables us to isolate a many-body effect that suppresses the superconducting transition temperature TcT_cTc​ beyond the simple reduction expected from a shrinking Fermi surface. The theory unambiguously produces: (i) a TcT_cTc​ tracing out a dome as a function of hole doping, (ii) a new low-energy mode upon entering superconductivity, (iii) a suppressed superfluid stiffness in the underdoped regime, and (iv) a gap-to-TcT_cTc​ ratio far exceeding the BCS limit, all consistent with experimental observations in cuprate superconductors. These findings provide an analytic benchmark for understanding how superconductivity emerges from a correlated Fermi-arc state in high-TcT_cTc​ superconductors.
A d-wave superconducting ground state for a doped Mott insulator is obtained. It is distinguished from a Gutzwiller-projected Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superconductor by an explicit separation of Cooper pairing and resonating valence bond (RVB) pairing. Such a state satisfies the precise sign structure of the t–J model, just as a BCS state satisfies the Fermi–Dirac statistics. This new class of wavefunctions can be intrinsically characterized and effectively manipulated by electron fractionalization with neutral spinons and 'backflow' spinons forming a two-component RVB structure. While the former spinon is bosonic, originating from the superexchange correlation, the latter spinon is found to be fermionic, accompanying the hopping of bosonic holons. The low-lying emergent gauge fields associated with such a specific fractionalization are of mutual Chern–Simons type. Corresponding to this superconducting ground state, three types of elementary excitations are identified. Among them a Bogoliubov nodal quasiparticle is conventional, while the other two are neutral excitations of non-BCS type that play crucial roles in higher-energy/temperature regimes. Their unique experimental implications for the cuprates are briefly discussed.
Superconductivity is usually described in the framework of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) wavefunction, which even includes the resonating-valence-bond (RVB) wavefunction proposed for the high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprate. A natural question is ififif any fundamental physics could be possibly missed by applying such a scheme to strongly correlated systems. Here we study the pairing wavefunction of two holes injected into a Mott insulator/antiferromagnet in a two-leg ladder using variational Monte Carlo approach. By comparing with density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculation, we show that a conventional BCS or RVB pairing of the doped holes makes qualitatively wrong predictions and is incompatible with the fundamental pairing force in the $t\text{\ensuremath{-}}J$ model, which is kinetic-energy driven by nature. By contrast, a non-BCS-like wavefunction incorporating such novel effect will result in a substantially enhanced pairing strength and improved ground state energy as compared to the DMRG results. We argue that the non-BCS form of such a new ground state wavefunction is essential to describe a doped Mott antiferromagnet at finite doping.
Low-lying one-particle anomalous excitations are studied for Gutzwiller-projected strongly correlated BCS states. It is found that the one-particle anomalous excitations are highly coherent, and the numerically calculated spectrum can be reproduced quantitatively by a renormalized BCS theory, thus strongly indicating that the nature of low-lying excitations described by the projected BCS states is essentially understood within a renormalized Bogoliubov quasiparticle picture. This finding resembles the well-known fact that a Gutzwiller-projected Fermi gas is a Fermi liquid. The present results are consistent with numerically exact calculations of the two-dimensional $t\text{\ensuremath{-}}J$ model as well as recent photoemission experiments on high-TC{T}_{\mathrm{C}}TC​ cuprate superconductors.
We use the concept of generalized (almost localized) Fermi Liquid composed of nonstandard quasiparticles with spin-dependence effective masses and the effective field induced by electron correlations.This Fermi liquid is obtained within the so-called statistically-consistent Gutzwiller approximation (SGA) proposed recently [cf.J. Je ¸drak et al., arXiv: 1008.0021] and describes electronic states of the correlated quantum liquid.Particular emphasis is put on real space pairing driven by the electronic correlations, the Fulde-Ferrell state of the heavy-fermion liquid, and the d-wave superconducting state of high temperature cuprate superconductors in the overdoped limit.The appropriate phase diagrams are discussed showing in particular the limits of stability of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) type of state.
The (mean field based) BCS theory is considered one of the most successful theories in condensed matter physics. It is justified in ordinary metal superconductors the coherence length ξξξ is large, with two important features: the order parameter (OP) and excitation gap (EG) are identical, and the pair formation and their Bose condensation take place at the same temperature Tc. It fails to explain the underdoped cuprate superconductivity: EG is finite at Tc and thus distinct from OP. Since these superconductors belong to a large class of small ξξξ materials, this failure has the potential for widespread impact. Here we have extended BCS theory in a natural way to short ξξξ superconductors, based on a BCS--BEC crossover scenario, and arrived at a simple physical picture in which incoherent, finite momentum pairs become progressively more important as the pairing interaction becomes stronger, leading to the distinction between EG and OP. The superconductivity from the fermionic perspective and BEC from the bosonic perspective are just two sides of the same coin. Our theory is capable of making verifiable quantitative predictions. We obtain a cuprate phase diagram (with one free parameter) , in (semi-)quantitative agreement with experiment. The mutually compensating contributions from fermionic quasiparticles and bosonic pair excitations provides a natural explanation for the quasi-universal behavior of the in-plane superfluid density versus T. Our bosonic pair excitations also provide an intrinsic mechanism for the long mysterious linear T terms in the specific heat. Incoherent pair contributions lead to new low T power laws, consistent with existing experiments. Finally, we demonstrated that the onset of superconducting long range order leads to sharp features in the specific heat at Tc, consistent with experiment.