Dynamic electron correlations with charge order wavelength along all directions in the copper oxide plane

In strongly correlated systems the strength of Coulomb interactions between electrons, relative to their kinetic energy, plays a central role in determining their emergent quantum mechanical phases. We perform resonant x-ray scattering on Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$, a prototypical cuprate superconductor, to probe electronic correlations within the CuO$_2$ plane. We discover a dynamic quasi-circular pattern in the $x$-$y$ scattering plane with a radius that matches the wave vector magnitude of the well-known static charge order. Along with doping- and temperature-dependent measurements, our experiments reveal a picture of charge order competing with superconductivity where short-range domains along $x$ and $y$ can dynamically rotate into any other in-plane direction. This quasi-circular spectrum, a hallmark of Brazovskii-type fluctuations, has immediate consequences to our understanding of rotational and translational symmetry breaking in the cuprates. We discuss how the combination of short- and long-range Coulomb interactions results in an effective non-monotonic potential that may determine the quasi-circular pattern.
Comment: This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Nature Communications. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20824-7. Supplementary materials are available through the published version in Nature Communications