Charge order driven by Fermi-arc instability and its connection with pseudogap in cuprate superconductors

Abstract

The recently discovered charge order is a generic feature of cuprate superconductors, however, its microscopic origin remains debated. Within the framework of the fermion-spin theory, the nature of charge order in the pseudogap phase and its evolution with doping are studied by taking into account the electron self-energy (then the pseudogap) effect. It is shown that the antinodal region of the electron Fermi surface is suppressed by the electron self-energy, and then the low-energy electron excitations occupy the disconnected Fermi arcs located around the nodal region. In particular, the charge order state is driven by the Fermi-arc instability, with a characteristic wave vector corresponding to the hot spots of the Fermi arcs rather than the antinodal nesting vector. Moreover, although the Fermi arc increases its length as a function of doping, the charge order wave vector reduces almost linearity with the increase of doping. The theory also indicates that the Fermi arc, charge order and pseudogap in cuprate superconductors are intimately related to each other, and all of them emanates from the electron self-energy due to the interaction between electrons by the exchange of spin excitations.

Keywords:

• Charge order
• Fermi arc
• pseudogap
• hot spot
• electron Fermi surface
• cuprate superconductors

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Lülin Kuang, Xixiao Ma, Ling Qin and Yu Lan for helpful discussions.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

SF and DG are supported by the funds from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China [grant number 2012CB821403]; and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [grant number 11274044], [grant number 11574032]; and HZ is supported by NSFC [grant number 11447144].