1999/12/21 by T. Senthil, Matthew P. A. Fisher, Senthil, T. +1
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/9912380
7 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 1999/12/21 · openalex publication_date 1999/12/21 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Theoretical attempts to explain the origin of high temperature superconductivity are challenged by the complexity of the normal state, which exhibits three regimes with increasing hole doping: a pseudo-gap regime when underdoped, strange power laws near optimal doping and more conventional metallic behavior when heavily overdoped. We suggest that the origin of this behavior is linked to a zero temperature quantum phase transition separating the overdoped Fermi liquid from a spin-charge separated underdoped phase. Central to our analysis is a new Z2 gauge theory formulation, which supports topological vortex excitations - dubbed visons. The visons are gapped in the underdoped phase, splitting the electron's charge and Fermi statistics into two separate excitations. Superconductivity occurs when the resulting charge e boson condenses. The visons are condensed in the overdoped phase, thereby confining the charge and statistics of the electron leading to a Fermi liquid phase. Right at the quantum confinement transition the visons are in a critical state, leading to power law behavior for both charge and spin.