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The phase diagram of the cuprate superconductors continues to pose formidable scientific challenges. While these materials are typically viewed as doped Mott insulators, it is well known that they are Fermi liquids at high hole-dopant concentrations. It was recently demonstrated that at moderate doping, in the pseudogap (PG) region of the phase diagram, the charge carriers are also best described as a Fermi liquid. Nevertheless, the relationship between the two Fermi-liquid (FL) regions and the nature of the strange-metal (SM) state at intermediate doping have remained unsolved. Here we show for the case of the model cuprate superconductor HgBa2CuO4+δ that the normal-state transport scattering rate determined from the cotangent of the Hall angle remains quadratic in temperature across the PG temperature, upon entering the SM state, and that it is doping- independent below optimal doping. Analysis of prior transport results for other cuprates reveals that this behavior is universal throughout the entire phase diagram and points to a pervasive FL transport scattering rate. These observations can be reconciled with a variety of other experimental results for the cuprates upon considering the possibility that the PG phenomenon is associated with the gradual, non- uniform localization of one hole per planar CuO2 unit.

We use neutron scattering to study magnetic excitations near the antiferromagnetic wave vector in the underdoped single-layer cuprate HgBa2CuO4+{\delta} (superconducting transition temperature Tc ~ 88 K, pseudogap temperature T* ~ 220 K). The response is distinctly enhanced below T* and exhibits a Y-shaped dispersion in the pseudogap state, whereas the superconducting state features an X-shaped (hourglass) dispersion and a further resonance-like enhancement. A large spin gap of about 40 meV is observed in both states. This phenomenology is reminiscent of that exhibited by bilayer cuprates. The resonance spectral weight, irrespective of doping and compound, scales linearly with the putative binding energy of a spin-exciton described by an itinerant-spin formalism., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

We use neutron scattering to study magnetic excitations near the antiferromagnetic wave vector in the underdoped single-layer cuprate HgBa2CuO4+�� (superconducting transition temperature Tc ~ 88 K, pseudogap temperature T* ~ 220 K). The response is distinctly enhanced below T* and exhibits a Y-shaped dispersion in the pseudogap state, whereas the superconducting state features an X-shaped (hourglass) dispersion and a further resonance-like enhancement. A large spin gap of about 40 meV is observed in both states. This phenomenology is reminiscent of that exhibited by bilayer cuprates. The resonance spectral weight, irrespective of doping and compound, scales linearly with the putative binding energy of a spin-exciton described by an itinerant-spin formalism., 6 pages, 3 figures

The phase diagram of the cuprate superconductors continues to pose formidable scientific challenges. While these materials are typically viewed as doped Mott insulators, it is well known that they are Fermi liquids at high hole-dopant concentrations. It was recently demonstrated that at moderate doping, in the pseudogap region of the phase diagram, the charge carriers are also best described as Fermi liquid. Nevertheless, the relationship between the two Fermi-liquid regions and the nature of the strange-metal state at intermediate doping have remained unsolved. Here we show in the case of the model cuprate superconductor HgBa2CuO4+{\delta} that the scattering rate measured by the cotangent of the Hall angle remains quadratic in temperature across the pseudogap temperature, upon entering the strange-metal state, and that it is doping-independent below optimal doping. Analysis of the published results for other cuprates reveals that this behavior is universal throughout the entire phase diagram and points to a pervasive Fermi-liquid transport scattering rate. We argue that these observations can be reconciled with other data upon considering the possibility that the pseudogap phenomenon signifies the completion of the gradual, non-uniform localization of one hole per planar CuO2 unit upon cooling.

We report in-plane resistivity ($\rho$) and transverse magnetoresistance (MR) measurements in underdoped HgBa$_2$CuO$_{4+\delta}$ (Hg1201). Contrary to the longstanding view that Kohler's rule is strongly violated in underdoped cuprates, we find that it is in fact satisfied in the pseudogap phase of Hg1201. The transverse MR shows a quadratic field dependence, $\delta\rho/\rho_o=a H^{2}$, with $a(T)\propto T^{-4}$. In combination with the observed $\rho\propto T^2$ dependence, this is consistent with a single Fermi-liquid quasiparticle scattering rate. We show that this behavior is universal, yet typically masked in cuprates with lower structural symmetry or strong disorder effects., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Antiferromagnetic correlations have been argued to be the cause of the d-wave superconductivity and the pseudogap phenomena exhibited by the cuprates. Although the antiferromagnetic response in the pseudogap state has been reported for a number of compounds, there exists no information for structurally simple HgBa$_2$CuO$_{4+��}$. Here we report neutron scattering results for HgBa$_2$CuO$_{4+��}$ (superconducting transition temperature T$_c$ $\sim$ 71 K, pseudogap temperature T* $\sim$ 305 K) that demonstrate the absence of the two most prominent features of the magnetic excitation spectrum of the cuprates: the X-shaped 'hourglass' response and the resonance mode in the superconducting state. Instead, the response is Y-shaped, gapped, and significantly enhanced below T*, and hence a prominent signature of the pseudogap state.

Charge-density-wave (CDW) correlations within the quintessential CuO$_2$ planes have been argued to either cause [1] or compete with [2] the superconductivity in the cuprates, and they might furthermore drive the Fermi-surface reconstruction in high magnetic fields implied by quantum oscillation (QO) experiments for YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+{\delta}}$ (YBCO) [3] and HgBa$_2$CuO$_{4+{\delta}}$ (Hg1201) [4]. Consequently, the observation of bulk CDW order in YBCO was a significant development [5,6,7]. Hg1201 features particularly high structural symmetry and recently has been demonstrated to exhibit Fermi-liquid charge transport in the relevant temperature-doping range of the phase diagram, whereas for YBCO and other cuprates this underlying property of the CuO$_2$ planes is partially or fully masked [8-10]. It therefore is imperative to establish if the pristine transport behavior of Hg1201 is compatible with CDW order. Here we investigate Hg1201 ($T_c$ = 72 K) via bulk Cu L-edge resonant X-ray scattering. We indeed observe CDW correlations in the absence of a magnetic field, although the correlations and competition with superconductivity are weaker than in YBCO. Interestingly, at the measured hole-doping level, both the short-range CDW and Fermi-liquid transport appear below the same temperature of about 200 K. Our result points to a unifying picture in which the CDW formation is preceded at the higher pseudogap temperature by $q$ = 0 magnetic order [11,12] and the build-up of significant dynamic antiferromagnetic correlations [13]. Furthermore, the smaller CDW modulation wave vector observed for Hg1201 is consistent with the larger electron pocket implied by both QO [4] and Hall-effect [14] measurements, which suggests that CDW correlations are indeed responsible for the low-temperature QO phenomenon.

A major challenge in understanding the cuprate superconductors is to clarify the nature of the fundamental electronic correlations that lead to the pseudogap phenomenon. Here we use ultrashort light pulses to prepare a non-thermal distribution of excitations and capture novel properties that are hidden at equilibrium. Using a broadband (0.5-2 eV) probe we are able to track the dynamics of the dielectric function, unveiling an anomalous decrease of the scattering rate of the charge carriers in a pseudogap-like region of the temperature ($T$) and hole-doping ($p$) phase diagram. In this region, delimited by a well-defined $T^*_{neq}(p)$ line, the photo-excitation process triggers the evolution of antinodal excitations from gapped (localized) to delocalized quasi-particles characterized by a longer lifetime. The novel concept of photo-enhanced antinodal conductivity is naturally explained within the single-band Hubbard model, in which the short-range Coulomb repulsion leads to a k-space differentiation between "nodal" quasiparticles and antinodal excitations., accepted for publication on Nature Communications