Commensurate antiferromagnetic excitations as a signature of the pseudogap in the tetragonal high-Tc cuprate HgBa2CuO4+δ

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 HgBa2CuO4+δ. Here we report neutron-scattering results for HgBa2CuO4+δ (superconducting transition temperature Tc≈71 K, pseudogap temperature T*≈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.
In the cuprates, antiferromagnetic correlations might be the cause of the pseudogap phenomenon. Here the authors use neutron scattering on the tetragonal cuprate HgBa2CuO4+δ revealing commensurate antiferromagnetic excitations as a signature of the pseudogap state.