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Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Bogoliubov quasiparticles, spinons, and spin-charge decoupling in superconductors

Steven Allan Kivelson, Daniel S. Rokhsar

Published Jun 1, 1990• 87 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We show that, in the presence of Coulomb interactions, the charge of a quasiparticle in a fully gapped superconductor is a sharp quantum observable. It follows that the familiar Bogoliubov quasiparticles are neutral, spin-1/2 fermions. Since the current-carrying collective modes are spinless, charge and spin are carried by separate excitations in a superconductor. The quantum numbers of these quasiparticles are identical to those of a spinon in a ``resonating-valence-bond'' (RVB) superconductor. This supports the notion that a RVB superconductor is simply a strong-coupling version of a BCS superconductor. We describe an experiment that would directly verify the separation of charge and spin in a bulk superconductor.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.41.11693

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We show that, in the presence of Coulomb interactions, the charge of a quasiparticle in a fully gapped superconductor is a sharp quantum observable. It follows that the familiar Bogoliubov quasiparticles are neutral, spin-1/2 fermions. Since the current-carrying collective modes are spinless, charge and spin are carried by separate excitations in a superconductor. The quantum numbers of these quasiparticles are identical to those of a spinon in a ``resonating-valence-bond'' (RVB) superconductor. This supports the notion that a RVB superconductor is simply a strong-coupling version of a BCS superconductor. We describe an experiment that would directly verify the separation of charge and spin in a bulk superconductor.
We study the nature of the superconducting state, the origin of d-wave pairing, and elementary excitations of a resonating valence bond (RVB) superconductor. We show that the phase string formulation of the $t\ensuremath{-}J$ model leads to confinement of bare spinon and holon excitations in the superconducting state, though the vacuum is described by the RVB state. Nodal quasiparticles are obtained as composite excitations of spinon and holon excitations. The d-wave pairing symmetry is shown to arise from short-range antiferromagnetic correlations.
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.
In this paper we reexamine the problem of the separation of spin and charge degrees of freedom in two-dimensional strongly correlated systems. We establish a set of sufficient conditions for the occurrence of spin and charge separation. Specifically, we discuss this issue in the context of the Heisenberg model for spin-1/2 on a square lattice with nearest (J1{\mathit{J}}_{1}J1​) and next-nearest (J2{\mathit{J}}_{2}J2​) neighbor antiferromagnetic couplings. Our formulation makes explicit the existence of a local SU(2) gauge symmetry once the spin-1/2 operators are replaced by bound states of spinons. The mean-field theory for the spinons is solved numerically as a function of the ratio J2{\mathit{J}}_{2}J2​/J1{\mathit{J}}_{1}J1​ for the so-called s-RVB ansatz (s-RVB stands for short range resonating valence bond). A second-order phase transition exists in a flux state for J2{\mathit{J}}_{2}J2​/J1{\mathit{J}}_{1}J1​ larger than the critical value (J2/{\mathit{J}}_{2/}J2/​J1{\mathit{J}}_{1}J1​)cr{)}_{\mathrm{cr}})cr​ identify the range 0J2{\mathit{J}}_{2}J2​/J1{\mathit{J}}_{1}J1​(J2{\mathit{J}}_{2}J2​/J1{\mathit{J}}_{1}J1​)cr{)}_{\mathrm{cr}})cr​ as the s-RVB phase. It is characterized by the existence of a finite gap to the elementary excitations (spinons) and the breakdown of all the continuous gauge symmetries. An effective continuum theory for the spinons and the gauge degrees of freedom is constructed just below the onset of the flux phase. We argue that this effective theory is consistent with the deconfinement of the spinons carrying the fundamental charge of the gauge group. We contrast this result with the study of the one-dimensional quantum antiferromagnet within the same approach. We show that in the one-dimensional model, the spinons of the gauge picture are always confined and thus cannot be identified with the gapless spin-1/2 excitations of the quantum antiferromagnet Heisenberg model.
We study the structure of Bogoliubov quasiparticles, bogolons, the fermionic excitations of paired superfluids that arise from fermion (BCS) pairing, including neutral superfluids, superconductors, and paired quantum Hall states. The naive construction of a stationary quasiparticle in which the deformation of the pair field is neglected leads to a contradiction: it carries a net electrical current even though it does not move. However, treating the pair field self-consistently resolves this problem: in a neutral superfluid, a dipolar current pattern is associated with the quasiparticle for which the total current vanishes. When Maxwell electrodynamics is included, as appropriate to a superconductor, this pattern is confined over a penetration depth. For paired quantum Hall states of composite fermions, the Maxwell term is replaced by a Chern-Simons term, which leads to a dipolar charge distribution and consequently to a dipolar current pattern.