Optical conductivity of cuprates in the pseudogap state: Yang-Rice-Zhang model and antiferromagnetic spin waves

Abstract

In the underdoped regime of the cuprate phase diagram, the modified version of the Resonance Valence Bond (RVB) model by Yang, Rice and Zhang (YRZ) captures the strong electronic correlation effects very well as corroborated by the ARPES and many other experiments. However, under a non-equilibrium transport setting, YRZ says nothing about the scattering mechanisms of the charge carriers. In the present investigation we include, in a very simplified way, the scattering of charge carriers due to antiferromagnetic type spin waves (ASW). The effect of ASW excitations on conductivity has been studied by changing combined life times of the included process. It has been found that there is a qualitative change in the conductivity in the right direction. The theoretical conductivity reproduces qualitatively the experimental one.