On the Origin of a Small Hole Pocket in the Fermi Surface of Underdoped YBa2Cu3O<italic>y</italic>.

The comprehensive experimental studies of the quantum oscillations (QOs) in YBa₂Cu₃O_{<italic>y</italic>} (YBCO) lead N. Doiron-Leyraud et al. (Nature Communications 6:6034, 2015) to detection of small hole pockets below the transition into the charge-ordered (CO) phase. Their interpretation of the observed energy spectrum imposes serious constraints for the possible origin of electron and hole pockets—both of them should be due to the Fermi surface (FS) reconstruction at charge ordering with biaxial order parameter. However, the results of recent X-ray experiments which reveal the uniaxial CO in the underdoped YBCO make such interpretation questionable. We show that uniaxial CO parameter in combination with preexisting electron pocket at the Γ-point of Brillouin zone suggests a plausible interpretation of QOs associated with small hole pockets in YBCO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]