Search arXiv⌕ Search

arXiv · cond-mat/0501087

Hole crystallization in the spin ladder of Sr14Cu24O41

Abstract

One of the deepest questions in condensed matter physics concerns what other phases compete with superconductivity in high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors. One candidate is the "stripe" phase, in which the carriers (holes) condense into rivers of charge separating regions of antiferromagnetism. A related but lesser known system is the "spin ladder", which consists of two coupled chains of magnetic ions forming an array of rungs. A doped ladder can be thought of as a high-Tc material with lower dimensionality, and has been predicted to exhibit both superconductivity and an insulating "hole crystal" phase in which the carriers are localised through many-body interactions. The competition between the two resembles that between static stripes and superconductivity in high-Tc materials. Here we report evidence, from resonant x-ray scattering, for the existence of a hole crystal in the doped spin ladder of Sr14Cu24O41. This phase exists without a detectable distortion in the structural lattice, indicating it arises from many-body effects. Our measurements confirm theoretical predictions and support the picture that proximity to charge ordered states is a general property of superconductivity in copper-oxides.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

P. Abbamonte, G. Blumberg, A. Rusydi, A. Gozar, P. G. Evans, T. Siegrist, L. Venema, H. Eisaki, E. D. Isaacs, G. A. Sawatzky. 2005-01-05. Hole crystallization in the spin ladder of Sr14Cu24O41. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02925

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Observable-Based Learning of Effective Entanglement Hamiltonians

Determining the entanglement Hamiltonian (EH) of an interacting quantum many-body system remains a fundamental challenge beyond special analytically tractable cases. Here we develop an observable-matching framework for learning effective EHs, which we demonstrate using response estimates from quantum Monte Carlo. As applications of this framework, we first calibrate the overall prefactor of the lattice Bisognano--Wichmann (LBW) construction using equal-time correlations and then learn spatially resolved couplings beyond its prescribed profile, without assuming a specific functional form for their spatial dependence. Trained solely on local correlations, the learned EHs reproduce benchmarked von Neumann and second Rényi entropies in $1$D and second Rényi entropies in $2$D. For a strong-bond cut associated with special surface criticality at the $(2+1)$D $O(3)$ Wilson--Fisher critical point, free-form learning outperforms the calibrated LBW ansatz in predicting the second Rényi entropy and reveals spatially nonuniform coupling renormalizations. Importantly, the learned EH also provides access to the von Neumann entropy in this setting, revealing a negative subleading correction and extending previous Rényi entropy findings to the von Neumann case. Directly evaluating the von Neumann entropy in such $(2+1)$D interacting quantum many-body systems remains challenging for conventional numerical methods. These results establish observable-based learning as a route to constructing effective entanglement Hamiltonians beyond prescribed spatial profiles in higher-dimensional interacting systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Extensions of the Haldane gap proof: higher dimensions, near degeneracy, fermions and tensor-network states

A recent remarkable paper by OpenAI showed that the spin-one Heisenberg chain with periodic boundary conditions has a spectral gap in the thermodynamic limit. The proof elegantly deduces this gap from the Hamiltonian's spectrum on a finite system. This basic idea is an inequality involving the purity of the original Gibbs state and a dual Gibbs state that is defined via space-time rotation. Here we consider a few generalizations of this purity bootstrap argument. We first extend it to arbitrary spatial dimensions. Our main result uses the space-time duality between symmetry generators and symmetry twists to obtain upper bounds on the splitting of nearly degenerate low-energy states, together with a nonzero gap above them, from finite-system information. As applications, we show that finite-system calculations for the 2+1-D toric code in a field and the 2+1-D transverse-field Ising model establish parameter regimes with four and two low-lying states whose splittings are bounded from above by $e^{-cL}$ and $e^{-cL^2}$ respectively for arbitrarily large system size $L$, while the gap above these states remains nonzero in the thermodynamic limit. Next, we extend it to fermionic systems and use a finite calculation to establish a symmetric mass generation phase in a $2+1$-D fermionic model. Finally, we apply the bootstrap to tensor-network states and establish exponential decay of connected correlations of all local operators in the symmetric square-lattice spin-one state introduced by Jian and Zaletel.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Interfacial polarity control of anomalous Hall effect in LaCoO3-SrIrO3 heterostructures

Interfacial polarity in oxide heterostructures can drive robust charge redistribution across the interface, yet its role in tailoring topological transport phenomena like the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) remains largely unexplored. Here, we control the sign of polarity-induced charge in SrIrO3-LaCoO3 interfaces by independently engineering the layer stacking sequence and the atomic termination. In-situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy directly confirms the sign reversal of the induced charge in SrIrO3 through the contrasting electronic band shifts between different interfacial configurations. Magneto-transport measurements across a systematic matrix of four distinct heterostructures reveal that the AHE can be cleanly toggled on and off: it emerges exclusively under electron-doped conditions, while remaining suppressed for hole-doped SrIrO3. Our results establish that this response originates from an intrinsic, Berry-curvature-driven mechanism governed by polarity-controlled band filling of SrIrO3. These findings shift interfacial polarity from a passive structural consequence to an active design variable for engineering topological quantum states in oxide heterostructures.

cond-mat.str-el↗