English

The doping evolution of the charge density wave and charge density fluctuations in La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$

Superconductivity 2026-05-21 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

Cuprate superconductors show various collective charge correlations that are intimately connected with their electronic properties. In particular, charge order in the form of an incommensurate charge density wave (CDW) order with an in-plane wavevector δCDW\delta_{\text{CDW}} \approx 0.23--0.35~r.l.u. appears to be universally present. In addition to CDW, dynamic charge density fluctuations (CDF) are also present with wavevectors comparable to δCDW\delta_{\text{CDW}}. CDFs are present up to 300  \sim300\;K and have relatively short correlation lengths of ξ20\xi \sim 20\;\AA. Here we use Cu-L3L_3 and O-KK resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) to study the doping dependence of CDW and CDFs in La2x_{2-x}Srx_xCuO4_4. We fit our data with (quasi)elastic peaks resulting from the CDW and up to four inelastic modes associated with oxygen phonons that can be strongly coupled to the CDFs. Our analysis allows us to separate the charge correlations into three components: the CDW with wavevector δ4aCDW0.24\delta_{4a-\text{CDW}} \approx 0.24 and two CDF components with δ4aCDF0.24\delta_{4a-\text{CDF}} \approx 0.24 and δ3aCDF0.30\delta_{3a-\text{CDF}} \approx 0.30. We find that for TTcT \approx T_c the CDW coexists with the CDFs for dopings near x=p1/8x=p \sim 1/8. The 4a4a-CDW disappears beyond x=0.16x=0.16 and the 4a4a-CDF beyond x=0.19x=0.19, leaving only a weak 3a3a-CDF at the highest doping studied, x=0.22x=0.22. Our data suggest that low-energy charge fluctuations exist up to doping x=0.19=px=0.19=p^{\star}, where the pseudogap disappears, however, we find no evidence that they are associated with a quantum critical point.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.08885,
  title  = {The doping evolution of the charge density wave and charge density fluctuations in La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$},
  author = {Charles C. Tam and Mengze Zhu and Maud C. Barthélemy and Lauren J. Cane and Oliver J. Lipscombe and Stefano Agrestini and Jaewon Choi and Mirian Garcia-Fernandez and Ke-Jin Zhou and Stephen M. Hayden},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.08885},
  year   = {2026}
}