Topological doping and the stability of stripe phases

Leonid P. Pryadko, Steven A. Kivelson, V. J. Emery, Yaroslaw B. Bazaliy, and Eugene A. Demler
Phys. Rev. B 60, 7541 – Published 1 September 1999
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Abstract

We analyze the properties of a general Ginzburg-Landau free energy with competing order parameters, long-range interactions, and global constraints (e.g., a fixed value of a total “charge”) to address the physics of stripe phases in underdoped high-Tc and related materials. For a local free energy limited to quadratic terms of the gradient expansion, only uniform or phase-separated configurations are thermodynamically stable. “Stripe” or other nonuniform phases can be stabilized by long-range forces, but can only have nontopological (in-phase) domain walls where the components of the antiferromagnetic order parameter never change sign, and the periods of charge and spin-density waves coincide. The antiphase domain walls observed experimentally require physics on an intermediate length scale, and they are absent from a model that involves only long-distance physics. Dense stripe phases can be stable even in the absence of long-range forces, but domain walls always attract at large distances; i.e., there is a ubiquitous tendency to phase separation at small doping. The implications for the phase diagram of underdoped cuprates are discussed.

  • Received 12 May 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.60.7541

©1999 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Leonid P. Pryadko

  • Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

Steven A. Kivelson

  • Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095

V. J. Emery

  • Department of Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973-5000

Yaroslaw B. Bazaliy

  • Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, Calfornia 94305

Eugene A. Demler

  • Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, Calfornia 93106-4030

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Vol. 60, Iss. 10 — 1 September 1999

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