Proposed Chiral Texture of the Magnetic Moments of Unit-Cell Loop Currents in the Pseudogap Phase of Cuprate Superconductors

Sergey S. Pershoguba; Kostyantyn Kechedzhi; Victor M. Yakovenko

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.047005

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Proposed Chiral Texture of the Magnetic Moments of Unit-Cell Loop Currents in the Pseudogap Phase of Cuprate Superconductors

Sergey S. Pershoguba, Kostyantyn Kechedzhi, Victor M. Yakovenko

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.047005 · Physical Review Letters

T1

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Abstract

We propose a novel chiral order parameter to explain the unusual polar Kerr effect in underdoped cuprates. It is based on the loop-current model by Varma, which is characterized by the in-plane anapole moment N and exhibits the magnetoelectric effect. We propose a helical structure where the vector N(n) in the layer n is twisted by the angle π/2 relative to N(n−1), thus breaking inversion symmetry. We show that coupling between magnetoelectric terms in the neighboring layers for this structure produces optical gyrotropy, which results in circular dichroism and the polar Kerr effect.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

Formula	Reported Tc (K)	Pressure (GPa)	Type
YBa2Cu3O7-x Archive — visibility unverified Source-occurrence policy only; no material identity or catalogue acceptance is inferred from the formula.	—	Pressure not reported	unknown