How to detect fluctuating stripes in the high-temperature superconductors

A discussion on the fluctuating order in a quantum disordered phase close to a quantum critical point with emphasis on fluctuating stripe order and optimal strategies for extracting information about local order is illustrated. The evidence of local stripe order in a number of neutron scattering and scanning tunnel microscopy (STM) measurements on various cuprate high-temperature superconductors are analyzed.