IAS, Princeton

Title: Stripes and High Temperature Superconductors


Abstract: Mean field (MF) models can give a surprisingly deep insight in physics of many systems. I will review some experimental data on phase diagram of underdoped cuprate materials, and demonstrate a set of very general exact constraints which any effective mean-field theory must satisfy to describe the stripe phases. In particular, the existence of antiphase domain walls in the ground state requires a competition between interactions at a short distance scale; this is impossible near a second order phase transition where the correlation length diverges. I will also discuss even more general Landau models of incommensurate ordering in these systems.

The talk will be based in part on the article ``Topological doping and the stability of stripe phases'' by L. P. Pryadko, S. A. Kivelson, V. J. Emery, Ya. B. Bazaliy, and E. A. Demler, Phys. Rev. B 60, 7541-57 (1999), as well as some related unpublished work.