ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

MuSR search for fluctuating loop currents in cuprates

Abstract: The origin of a mysterious pseudogap region in high-Tc superconductors is a challenging issue. It was proposed that the pseudogap is caused by a circulating-current order characterized by a unique long-range patten of loop currents in the CuO2 planes. Loop-current order is by now inferred in 5 different classes of symmetry-sensitive experiments: polarized neutron scattering, Kerr effect, bireferingence, dichroic ARPES, and second harmonic generation. However, local probes such as MuSR and NMR do not see the magnetic fields expected for such an order. These local probes have much longer time scales than the others. It has been suggested that the local magnetic fields may be motionally narrowed by fluctuations among the different possible directions of the loop-current order. We propose MuSR experiments to fairly definitively this possibility and also obtain the fluctuation time-scale.

Principal Investigator: Dr Lei Shu
Experimenter: Mr Cheng Tan
Experimenter: Mr Jian Zhang
Experimenter: Dr Douglas MacLaughlin
Experimenter: Mr Zhaofeng Ding
Experimenter: Dr Adrian Hillier
Local Contact: Dr Pabitra Biswas
Experimenter: Dr Kevin Huang
Experimenter: Professor Pei-Chun Ho
Experimenter: Professor Chandra Varma

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1620201

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1620201

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr Lei Shu et al; (2016): MuSR search for fluctuating loop currents in cuprates, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1620201

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.