Self-energy effects in cuprates and the dome-shaped behavior of the superconducting critical temperature

Abstract

Hole-doped cuprates show a superconducting critical temperature Tc which follows a universal dome-shaped behavior as a function of doping. It is believed that the origin of superconductivity in cuprates is entangled with the physics of the pseudogap phase. An open discussion is whether the source of superconductivity is the same effect that causes the pseudogap properties. The t-J model treated in large-N expansion shows d-wave superconductivity triggered by nonretarded interactions, and an instability of the paramagnetic state to a flux phase or d-wave charge-density wave (d-CDW) state. In this paper we show that self-energy effects near the d-CDW instability may lead to a dome-shaped behavior of Tc. In addition, it is also shown that these self-energy contributions may describe several properties observed in the pseudogap phase. In this picture, although fluctuations responsible for the pseudogap properties lead to a dome-shaped behavior, they are not involved in pairing, which is mainly nonretarded.