Evidence for a Fermi liquid in the pseudogap phase of high-Tc cuprates

Understand

Cuprate high-T_c superconductors on the Mott-insulating side of "optimal doping" (with respect to the highest T_c's) exhibit enigmatic behavior in the non-superconducting state.

• Near optimal doping the transport and spectroscopic properties are unlike those of a Landau-Fermi liquid.
• For carrier concentrations below optimal doping a pseudogap removes quasi-particle spectral weight from parts of the Fermi surface, and causes a break-up of the Fermi surface into disconnected nodal and anti-nodal sectors.
• Here we show that the near-nodal excitations of underdoped cuprates obey Fermi liquid behavior.