Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in a spin-charge-separated superconductor

J. P. Rodriguez

doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.49.9831

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Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in a spin-charge-separated superconductor

J. P. Rodriguez

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.49.9831 · Physical Review B

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Abstract

A model for spin-charge-separated superconductivity in two dimensions is introduced where the phases of the spinon and holon order parameters couple guage invariantly to a statistical gauge field representing chiral spin fluctuations. The model is analyzed in the continuum limit and in the low-temperature limit. In both cases we find that physical electronic phase correlations show a superconducting-normal phase transition of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type, while statistical gauge-field excitations are found to be strictly gapless. It is argued that the former transition is in the same universality class as that of the XY model. We thus predict a universal jump in the superfluid density at this transition. The normal-to-superconductor phase boundary for this model is also obtained as a function of carrier density, where we find that its shape compares favorably with that of the experimentally observed phase diagram for the oxide superconductors.