Interchain Coupling Effects and Solitons in CuGeO_3

The effects of interchain coupling on solitons and soliton lattice structures in CuGeO3 are explored. It is shown that interchain coupling substantially increases the soliton width and changes the soliton lattice structures in the incommensurate phase. It is proposed that the experimentally observed large soliton width in CuGeO3 is mainly due to interchain coupling effects.Comment: 4 pages, LaTex, one eps figure included. No essential changes except forma

Chaotic quantum dots with strongly correlated electrons

Quantum dots pose a problem where one must confront three obstacles: randomness, interactions and finite size. Yet it is this confluence that allows one to make some theoretical advances by invoking three theoretical tools: Random Matrix theory (RMT), the Renormalization Group (RG) and the 1/N expansion. Here the reader is introduced to these techniques and shown how they may be combined to answer a set of questions pertaining to quantum dotsComment: latex file 16 pages 8 figures, to appear in Reviews of Modern Physic

Effects of antiferromagnetic planes on the superconducting properties of multilayered high-Tc cuprates

We propose a mechanism for high critical temperature (T_c) in the coexistent phase of superconducting- (SC) and antiferromagnetic (AF) CuO_2 planes in multilayered cuprates. The Josephson coupling between the SC planes separated by an AF insulator (Mott insulator) is calculated perturbatively up to the fourth order in terms of the hopping integral between adjacent CuO_2 planes. It is shown that the AF exchange splitting in the AF plane suppresses the so-called pi-Josephson coupling, and the long-ranged 0-Josephson coupling leads to coexistence with a rather high value of T_c.Comment: 4 pages including 4 figure

An explanation for a universality of transition temperatures in families of copper oxide superconductors

A remarkable mystery of the copper oxide high-transition-temperature (Tc) superconductors is the dependence of Tc on the number of CuO2 layers, n, in the unit cell of a crystal. In a given family of these superconductors, Tc rises with the number of layers, reaching a peak at n=3, and then declines: the result is a bell-shaped curve. Despite the ubiquity of this phenomenon, it is still poorly understood and attention has instead been mainly focused on the properties of a single CuO2 plane. Here we show that the quantum tunnelling of Cooper pairs between the layers simply and naturally explains the experimental results, when combined with the recently quantified charge imbalance of the layers and the latest notion of a competing order nucleated by this charge imbalance that suppresses superconductivity. We calculate the bell-shaped curve and show that, if materials can be engineered so as to minimize the charge imbalance as n increases, Tc can be raised further.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. The version published in Natur

NMR relaxation in half-integer antiferromagnetic spin chains

Nuclear relaxation in half-integer spin chains at low temperatures (T << J, the antiferromagnetic exchange constant) is dominated by dissipation from a gas of thermally-excited, overdamped, spinons. The universal low temperature dependence of the relaxation rates $1/T_1$ and $1/T_{2G}$ is computed.Comment: 7 pages, 1 uuencoded postscript figure appende

Ginzburg-Landau Expansion and the Slope of the Upper Critical Field in Disordered Superconductors with Anisotropic Pairing

It is demonstrated that the slope of the upper critical field $|dH_{c2}/dT|_{T_{c}}$ in superconductors with $d$-wave pairing drops rather fast with concentration of normal impurities, while in superconductors with anisotropic $s$-wave pairing $|dH_{c2}/dT|_{T_{c}}$ grows, and in the limit of strong disorder is described by the known dependences of the theory of ``dirty'' superconductors. This allows to use the measurements of $H_{c2}$ in disordered superconductors to discriminate between these different types of pairing in high-temperature and heavy-fermion superconductors.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, RevTeX 3.0, 4 Postscript figures attached; Submitted to JETP Letter

Spin-gap effect on resistivity in the t-J model

We calculate the spin-gap effect on dc resistivity in the t-J model of high-$T_{\rm c}$ cuprates by using the Ginzburg-Landau theory coupled with a gauge field as its effective field theory to get $\rho(T) \propto T \{1-c\:(T^* -T)^d \}$, where $T^*$ is the spin-gap onset temperature. By taking the compactness of massive gauge field into account, the exponent $d$ deviates from its mean-field value 1/2 and becomes a nonuniversal $T$-dependent quantity, which improves the correspondence with the experiments.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX format, 2 eps-figure

The nature and boundary of the floating phase in a dissipative Josephson junction array

We study the nature of correlations within, and the transition into, the floating phase of dissipative Josephson junction arrays. Order parameter correlations in this phase are long-ranged in time, but only short-ranged in space. A perturbative RG analysis shows that, in {\it arbitrary} spatial dimension, the transition is controlled by a continuous locus of critical fixed points determined entirely by the \textit{local} topology of the lattice. This may be the most natural example of a line of critical points existing in arbitrary dimensions.Comment: Parts rewritten, typos correcte

Theory of quantum metal to superconductor transitions in highly conducting systems

We derive the theory of the quantum (zero temperature) superconductor to metal transition in disordered materials when the resistance of the normal metal near criticality is small compared to the quantum of resistivity. This can occur most readily in situations in which ``Anderson's theorem'' does not apply. We explicitly study the transition in superconductor-metal composites, in an s-wave superconducting film in the presence of a magnetic field, and in a low temperature disordered d-wave superconductor. Near the point of the transition, the distribution of the superconducting order parameter is highly inhomogeneous. To describe this situation we employ a procedure which is similar to that introduced by Mott for description of the temperature dependence of the variable range hopping conduction. As the system approaches the point of the transition from the metal to the superconductor, the conductivity of the system diverges, and the Wiedemann-Franz law is violated. In the case of d-wave (or other exotic) superconductors we predict the existence of (at least) two sequential transitions as a function of increasing disorder: a d-wave to s-wave, and then an s-wave to metal transition

Theory of d-density wave viewed from a vertex model and its implications

The thermal disordering of the $d$-density wave, proposed to be the origin of the pseudogap state of high temperature superconductors, is suggested to be the same as that of the statistical mechanical model known as the 6-vertex model. The low temperature phase consists of a staggered order parameter of circulating currents, while the disordered high temperature phase is a power-law phase with no order. A special feature of this transition is the complete lack of an observable specific heat anomaly at the transition. There is also a transition at a even higher temperature at which the magnitude of the order parameter collapses. These results are due to classical thermal fluctuations and are entirely unrelated to a quantum critical point in the ground state. The quantum mechanical ground state can be explored by incorporating processes that causes transitions between the vertices, allowing us to discuss quantum phase transition in the ground state as well as the effect of quantum criticality at a finite temperature as distinct from the power-law fluctuations in the classical regime. A generalization of the model on a triangular lattice that leads to a 20-vertex model may shed light on the Wigner glass picture of the metal-insulator transition in two-dimensional electron gas. The power-law ordered high temperature phase may be generic to a class of constrained systems and its relation to recent advances in the quantum dimer models is noted.Comment: RevTex4, 10 pages, 11 figure