Translational Symmetry Breaking in the Superconducting State of the Cuprates Analysis of th.pdfVIP

Translational Symmetry Breaking in the Superconducting State of the Cuprates: Analysis of the Quasiparticle Density of States Daniel Podolsky, Eugene Demler, Kedar Damle, and B.I. Halperin Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138 Motivated by recent STM experiments on Bi Sr CaCu O [1–5], we study the effects of weak 2 2 2 8+δ translational symmetry breaking on the quasiparticle spectrum of a d-wave superconductor. We 3 develop a general formalism to discuss periodic charge order, as well as quasiparticle scattering off 0 localized defects. We argue that the STM experiments in Bi Sr CaCu O cannot be explained 0 2 2 2 8+δ 2 using a simple charge density wave order parameter, but are consistent with the presence of a periodic modulation in the electron hopping or pairing amplitude. We review the effects of randomness and n pinning of the charge order and compare it to the impurity scattering of quasiparticles. We also a J discuss implications of weak translational symmetry breaking for ARPES experiments. 8 2 I. INTRODUCTION tion of the corresponding simple cases, since the induced ] l ρQ(ǫ) is approximately linear in the order parameter for e- Puzzling properties of the high-Tc cuprates have of- small distortions. Such a superpositi