Quantum Protectorates in the Cuprate Superconductors

Abstract

Following the identification of the pairing state, the major challenge in understanding the cuprate superconductors has been determining the evolution with doping and temperature of their anomalous normal state behavior. Key to this understanding is the experimentally determined magnetic phase diagram for the cuprates, which provides information on the protected magnetic properties of the normal state, generic behavior that is reliably the same one system to the next, regardless of details. I discuss the constraints this places on candidate quantum protectorates, and the status of microscopic model calculations for a protectorate consistent with these constraints, the nearly antiferromagnetic Fermi liquid.