Enhanced superconducting correlations in the Emery model and its connections to strange metallic transport and normal state coherence

Abstract

Numerical evidence for superconductivity in the single-band Hubbard model is elusive or ambiguous despite extensive study, raising the question of whether the single-band Hubbard model is a faithful low energy effective model for cuprates, and whether explicitly including the oxygen ions will recover the properties necessary for a superconducting transition. Here we show, by using numerically exact determinant quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) simulations of the doped Emery model, that while the single-band model exhibits strikingly T-linear resistivity, the three-band model crosses the resistivity of the single-band model from above, indicating a crossover to a more metallic transport regime. The enhanced conductivity is mainly contributed by a steep increase in the diffusivity of the three-band model at the crossover, suggesting that three-band transport is more coherent than single-band transport at lower temperatures. Below the same crossover temperature in the three-band model, the pair-field susceptibility increases more steeply than at higher temperatures or when compared to the single-band model. This suggests a possible connection between superconductivity and coherent transport, and further implies that coherent transport might be necessary for a model to capture the high-temperature superconductivity observed in hole-doped cuprates.