No Evidence for Orbital Loop Currents in Charge Ordered YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ from Polarized Neutron Diffraction

Understand

It has been proposed that the pseudogap state of underdoped cuprate superconductors may be due to a transition to a phase which has circulating currents within each unit cell.

• Here, we use polarized neutron diffraction to search for the corresponding orbital moments in two samples of underdoped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ with doping levels $p=0.104$ and 0.123.
• In contrast to some other reports using polarized neutrons, but in agreement with nuclear magnetic resonance and muon spin rotation measurements, we find no evidence for the appearance of magnetic order below 300 K.
• Thus, our experiment suggests that such order is not an intrinsic property of high-quality cuprate superconductor single crystals.