Pseudogap and Fermi surface in the presence of spin-vortex checkerboard for 1/8-doped lanthanum cuprates

Abstract

Lanthanum family of high-temperature cuprate superconductors is known to exhibit both spin and charge electronic modulations around doping level 1/8. We assume that these modulations have the character of two-dimensional spin-vortex checkerboard and investigate whether this assumption is consistent with the Fermi surface and the pseudogap measured by angle-resolved photo-emission spectroscopy. We also explore the possibility of observing quantum oscillations of transport coefficients in such a background. These investigations are based on a model of non-interacting spin-1/2 fermions hopping on a square lattice and coupled through spins to a magnetic field imitating spin-vortex checkerboard. The main results of this article include (i) calculation of Fermi surface containing Fermi arcs at the positions in the Brillouin zone largely consistent with experiments; (ii) identification of factors complicating the observations of quantum oscillations in the presence of spin modulations; and (iii) investigation of the symmetries of the resulting electronic energy bands, which, in particular, indicates that each band is double-degenerate and, in addition, has at least one conical point, where it touches another double-degenerate band. We discuss possible implications these cones may have for the transport properties and the pseudogap.