Phonon anomalies due to stripe collective modes in high T_c cuprates

Abstract

Phonon anomalies observed in various high $T_c$ cuprates by neutron experiments are analyzed theoretically in terms of the stripe concept. The phonon self-energy correction is evaluated by taking into account the charge collective modes of stripes, giving rise to dispersion gap, or kink and shadow phonon modes at twice the wave number of spin stripe. These features coincide precisely with observations. The gapped branches of the phonon are found to be in-phase and out-of-phase oscillations relative to the charge collective mode.