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The issues raised in the preceding comment of Bourges et al. [Phys. Rev. B 98, 016501 (2018)], are shown to be unfounded. We highlight the complications caused by inhomogeneous beam polarization that can occur when using polarized neutron diffraction to detect small magnetic moments.

It has been proposed that the pseudogap state of underdoped cuprate superconductors may be due to a transition to a phase which has circulating currents within each unit cell. Here, we use polarized neutron diffraction to search for the corresponding orbital moments in two samples of underdoped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ with doping levels $p=0.104$ and 0.123. In contrast to some other reports using polarized neutrons, but in agreement with nuclear magnetic resonance and muon spin rotation measurements, we find no evidence for the appearance of magnetic order below 300 K. Thus, our experiment suggests that such order is not an intrinsic property of high-quality cuprate superconductor single crystals. Our results provide an upper bound for a possible orbital loop moment which depends on the pattern of currents within the unit cell. For example, for the CC-$\theta_{II}$ pattern proposed by Varma, we find that the ordered moment per current loop is less than 0.013 $\mu_B$ for $p=0.104$.

High-temperature superconductivity in cuprates is an ongoing mystery. Scientists show that two electronic phases of the cuprate La${}_{2-x}$Sr${}_{x}$CuO${}_{4}$ are in fact separate.