Metal-insulator crossover in superconducting cuprates in strong magnetic fields

Abstract

The metal-insulator crossover of the in-plane resistivity upon temperature decrease, recently observed in several classes of cuprate superconductors, when a strong magnetic field suppresses the superconductivity, is explained using the $U(1)\times SU(2)$ Chern-Simons gauge field theory. The origin of this crossover is the same as that for a similar phenomenon observed in heavily underdoped cuprates without magnetic field. It is due to the interplay between the diffusive motion of the charge carriers and the ``peculiar'' localization effect due to short-range antiferromagnetic order. We also calculate the in-plane transverse magnetoresistance which is in a fairly good agreement with available experimental data.