Abstract
Spin- and charge- stripe order has been extensively studied in the superconducting cuprates, among which underdoped La2−xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) is an archetype with static spin stripes at low temperatures. An intriguing, but not completely understood, phenomenon in LSCO is that the stripes are tilted away from the high-symmetry Cu-Cu directions. Using high-resolution neutron scattering on LSCO with x = 0.12, we find two coexisting phases at low temperatures, one with static spin stripes and the other with fluctuating ones, both sharing the same tilt angle. Our numerical calculations using the doped Hubbard model elucidate the tilting’s origin, attributing it to anisotropic next-nearest neighbor hopping t′, consistent with the material’s slight orthorhombicity. Our results underscore the model’s success in describing specific details of the ground state of this real material and highlight the role of t′ in the Hamiltonian, revealing the delicate interplay between stripes and superconductivity across theoretical and experimental contexts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 257 |
| Journal | Communications Physics |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2024 |
Funding
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences, and Engineering Division, under contract DE-AC02-76SF00515. Research conducted at ORNL\u2019s High Flux Isotope Reactor was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. We acknowledge the support of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce, in providing the neutron research facilities used in this work. M.F. was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) (Grant Nos. 16H02125 and 21H04448).