Role of strong correlation in the recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments on cuprate superconductors

Quenching the superconducting state of cuprate compounds with electric currents: a variational study

We investigate the properties of cuprate superconductors subject to applied current, using modified Gutzwiller projected d-wave BCS states. The parent states include quasiparticle and quasihole pockets, of variationally determined size, generated by the current. We identify two different mechanisms for the destruction of superconductivity at the critical current: at high hole doping (x≳0.15) the pockets grow and completely destroy the gap, in a BCS-like mechanism; in the underdoped regime, the superfluid stiffness vanishes at a maximal phase twist with pairing still intact. This result is indicative of a pseudogapped "normal" state which retains pairing correlations. The critical current as a function of doping displays a dome shape, similar to Tc. We predict unique signatures of the current induced Fermi pockets that can be seen in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.

Two-mode variational Monte Carlo study of quasiparticle excitations in cuprate superconductors

Recent measurements of quasiparticles in hole-doped cuprates revealed highly unusual features: (i) the doping-independent Fermi velocity, (ii) two energy scales in the quasiparticle spectral function, and (iii) a suppression of the low-energy spectral weight near the zone center. We explain these important facts by a novel two-mode variational Monte Carlo (VMC) study of the t-J model, which resolves a long-standing issue of the sum rule for quasiparticle spectral weights in VMC studies. The electron-doped case is also discussed.

Variational study of the one dimensional t-J model: a unified description of the ground state phase diagram

We find that the Gutzwiller projected Fermi sea wavefunction (GPWF) has the correct phase structure to describe the kink nature of the doped holes in the ground state of the one dimensional t-J model. We find the residual charge correlation beyond the GPWF is well described by an XXZ-type effective Hamiltonian. A Pfaffian-type variational wavefunction with only one parameter is proposed based on this observation and is found to reproduce correctly the global phase diagram and correlation functions of the one dimensional t-J model in both the Tomonaga-Luttinger regime and the Luther-Emery regime.

Electronic structure of strongly correlated d-wave superconductors

We study the electronic structure of a strongly correlated d-wave superconducting state. Combining a renormalized mean field theory with direct calculation of matrix elements, we obtain explicit analytical results for the nodal Fermi velocity upsilon(F), the Fermi wave vector k(F), and the momentum distribution n(k) as a function of hole doping in a Gutzwiller projected d-wave superconductor. We calculate the energy dispersion E(k) and spectral weight of the Gutzwiller-Bogoliubov quasiparticles and find that the spectral weight associated with the quasiparticle excitation at the antinodal point shows a nonmonotonic behavior as a function of doping. Results are compared to angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy of the high-temperature superconductors.