We examine experiments on energy gaps in high temperature superconductors (HTSC) in terms of experimental probes that utilize momentum, position, or neither. Experiments on very high quality mechanical tunnel junctions show a sharp energy gap with a maximum anisotropy of ~ 10%, while ultrahigh precision ARPES experiments show 100% anisotropy (d-wave pairing). We resolve this conbflict by showing that the latter result is caused by the momentum-projective nature of ARPES and glassy orthorhombic dopant correlations. The latter appear to be a universal feature of the intermediate phase tha is responsible for HTSC. Apparent large inconsistencies between position-projective STM gap data and tunnel junction data on severely underdoped BSCCO are also resolved.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0107531,
title = {Complementary Theories of Energy Gaps in HTSC},
author = {J. C. Phillips and J. Jung and D. Shimada and N. Tsuda},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0107531},
year = {2007}
}