X-ray natural dichroism and chiral order in underdoped cuprates

Abstract

The origin of the Kerr rotation observed in the pseudogap phase of cuprates has been the subject of much speculation. Recently, it has been proposed that this rotation might be due to chiral charge order. Here, I investigate whether such order can be observed by x-ray natural circular dichroism (XNCD). Several types of charge order were considered, and they can give rise to an XNCD signal depending on the stacking of the order along the c-axis.