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# Exact results and approximation schemes for the Schwinger Model with the Overlap Dirac OperatorThe authors have been supported in part under DOE grant DE-FG02-91ER40676.

## 1 The Schwinger Model with Overlap Fermions

The Euclidean action of the Schwinger Model in the overlap regularization is given by

$`S_L`$ $`=`$ $`\beta {\displaystyle \underset{x,\mu <\nu }{}}\left[1\text{Re}U_{\mu \nu }(x)\right]`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,y}{}}\overline{\psi }_i(x)\left[(1{\displaystyle \frac{ma}{2}})D(x,y)+m\right]\psi _i(y)`$
where $`U_{\mu \nu }(x)`$ is the standard Wilson plaquette, $`\psi _i`$ are $`N_f`$ fermions fields with mass $`m`$ and $`\beta =1/(ag)^2`$, $`g`$ being the bare coupling constant. $`D`$ is the massless overlap-Dirac operator

$`D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}\left(1+X{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{X^{}X}}}\right)`$
$`X`$ $`=`$ $`D_W{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}},`$ (2)
where $`D_W`$ is the Wilson-Dirac operator and $`a`$ is the lattice spacing. The Neuberger-Dirac operator satisfies the $`\gamma _5`$-Hermiticity condition

$$D^{}=\gamma _5D\gamma _5$$
(3)
and the Ginsparg-Wilson (GW) relation

$$\gamma _5D^1+D^1\gamma _5=a\gamma _5$$
(4)
The latter equation implies a continuous symmetry of the fermion action in Eq. (1) at finite lattice spacing

$$\delta \psi =\widehat{\gamma }_5\psi \delta \overline{\psi }=\overline{\psi }\gamma _5$$
(5)
where $`\widehat{\gamma }_5=\gamma _5(1aD)`$, which may be interpreted as a lattice form of the chiral symmetry. The chiral transformations in Eq. (5) lead to Ward identities analogous to the continuum ones and the anomaly term arises from the non-invariance of the fermion integral measure . The corresponding flavor non-singlet chiral transformations are defined including a flavor group generator in Eq. (5). They imply the Axial Ward identities

$$_\mu A_\mu ^c=2mP^c+O(a^2)$$
(6)
where the axial current and the pseudoscalar densities are

$`A_\mu ^c=\overline{\psi }{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^c}{2}}\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\psi P^c=\overline{\psi }{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^c}{2}}\gamma _5\psi `$ (7)
with $`\psi =(\psi _i,\mathrm{}\psi _{N_f})`$, and $`\lambda ^c`$ are the generators of the $`SU(N_f)`$ flavor group. In two dimensions the Axial current is related to the Vector one as

$$A_\mu ^c(x)=iϵ_{\mu \nu }V_\mu ^c(x)$$
(8)
where $`ϵ_{\mu \nu }`$ is the totally antisymmetric tensor.

In the $`N_f=2`$ massless model, there is a triplet of massless particles ($`\pi `$) and one massive singlet particle ($`\eta `$) with mass $`(M_\eta /g)^2=2/\pi `$. The correlation functions of the vector currents are the same as for free particles. For small masses the corrections to the massless results can be obtained by “chiral perturbation” theory  which to first order gives

$`{\displaystyle \frac{M_\pi }{g}}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2\gamma /3}{\displaystyle \frac{2^{5/6}}{\pi ^{1/6}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m}{g}}\right)^{2/3}`$
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_\eta }{g}}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_\pi }{g}}\right)^2`$ (9)
where $`\gamma =0.577216\mathrm{}`$ is Euler’s constant.

## 2 Numerical results with the full operator

In order to test our approximation method and, at the same time, to increase the body of informations on the lattice Schwinger model, we performed an extensive simulation with the exact Neuberger-Dirac operator. We considered the Schwinger model at $`\beta =6`$ on a $`24\times 24`$ lattice. On a lattice of this size, the discretized Dirac operator is a complex matrix of dimension $`1152\times 1152`$, for which we could use full matrix algebra subroutines without excessive burden on the resources available to us (Boston University SGI/Cray Origin 2000 supercomputer). The masses have been selected on the basis of previous results which indicated that, for most of the values we were planning to consider, the lattice would span at least a few correlation lengths. We generated 500 independent configurations of the gauge variables $`U_\mu (x)`$ distributed according to the pure gauge Wilson action of Eq. (1). For calculations with one and two flavors of dynamical fermions, we incorporated the determinant of the lattice Dirac operator in the averages of the correlation functions . While with large variations of the determinant this way of proceeding would lead to an unacceptable variance, in the present calculation we found the range of values taken by $`\mathrm{Det}(D)`$ to be sufficiently limited to warrant our averaging procedure (see Fig. 8).

For each configuration, we performed a singular value decomposition

$$D_W\frac{1}{a}=U\mathrm{\Lambda }\stackrel{~}{U}$$
(10)
where $`U,\stackrel{~}{U}`$ are unitary matrices and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is diagonal, real and non-negative. The operator $`V=X/\sqrt{X^{}X}`$ in Eq. 1 is then given by

$$V=U\stackrel{~}{U}$$
(11)
We proceeded then to the diagonalization of $`V`$, calculating all its eigenvalues and eigenvectors. From these, it is straightforward to calculate both the determinant of the Neuberger-Dirac operator $`D`$ as well as its associated propagator $`D^1`$ for any value of the fermion mass $`m`$. The full diagonalization of $`V`$ is computationally more demanding than the direct calculation of $`D^1`$, which typically gives also $`\mathrm{Det}(D)`$ as a by-product, but we were interested in the actual spectrum of $`V`$ for comparison with the approximations that will be discussed later. From the fermion propagators we calculated the meson propagators projected over zero momentum. We focused on the two point correlation functions of the singlet vector current and the triplet current

$$C_T(t)=\underset{x,x^{},y}{}V_2(x,y)V_2(x^{},y+t)$$
(12)
because they are saturated by a single particle contribution in the massless limit. We added to the averages the correlators obtained from the interchange of $`x`$ and $`y`$ in Eq. 12 for a further gain in statistics.

From fits to the meson correlators we extracted the meson masses in a standard manner. Our results for the meson and quark masses as functions of the fermion mass parameter of the action are reported in Figs. 1 and 2. The values we obtained for the masses are also reported in the Table. The errors have been evaluated with the jackknife method. Fig. 1 illustrates the behavior of the isotriplet mass $`M_\pi `$ in the model with two flavors. This mass is expected to vanish for $`m=0`$ and chiral perturbation theory predicts an $`m^{2/3}`$ dependence on $`m`$ (see Eq. 1). To test this functional dependence we performed two different fits. First the pion masses were fitted as

$$\frac{M_\pi }{g}=A+B\left(\frac{m}{g}\right)^{2/3}$$
(13)
using only the highest four quark masses for which $`24\times M_\pi >4`$. The results of the fit $`A=0.001(65)`$ and $`B=2.10(14)`$ confirm that Neuberger’s fermions preserve chiral symmetry and give values of $`B`$ in very good agreement with the theoretical prediction. The dashed line in Fig. 1 is the result of the fit. We then fitted the pion mass as

$$\frac{M_\pi }{g}=B\left(\frac{m}{g}\right)^\delta $$
(14)
obtaining $`B=2.10(17)`$ and $`\delta =0.67(6)`$ in perfect agreement with the expected functional dependence. Equally gratifying is the comparison of the value of the fermion mass $`m`$ in the Lagrangian with the value $`m^{AWI}`$ that can be extracted from the axial Ward identity Eq. 6.

In the Table we also report results for the singlet mass $`M_\eta `$ versus $`m^{4/3}`$, always for $`N_f=2`$. The singlet meson propagator is given by the difference of the connected and disconnected terms in the correlator and, because of the cancellations, the errors are larger than in the triplet case. The numerical results are, however, consistent with the theoretical prediction of Eq. 1.

## 3 Approximation in the Fourier Space

The long range physical properties of the Schwinger Model should be determined by the eigenstates of $`D`$ with eigenvalues in the neighborhood of $`\lambda =m`$ (i.e. the eigenstates of $`V`$ with eigenvalue $`\lambda _V`$ closest to $`1`$), since these are the states with are expected to go over the physical states of the continuum in the limit $`a0`$. This suggests that it should be possible to reconstruct the physical observables from these states alone.

Here we would like to make the point that the overlap formulation is particularly well suited for the implementation of the above approximation, since the unitarity of $`V`$ provides, in some sense, a constraint on the form of the approximation itself. Of course, one must be careful in attempting any approximation based on neglecting the short-wavelength part of the spectrum, even if the corresponding states are largely lattice artifacts, since one knows that in quantum field theory the infrared and ultraviolet components of the spectrum are subtly related. Thus, the chiral eigenstates with $`\lambda _V=1`$ (“zero modes”), which $`V`$ exhibits in presence of a gauge field with non-trivial topology, find their counterpart in states with opposite chirality and $`\lambda _V=1`$.

Here too, however, the special features of the overlap formulation come to the rescue, since, as we will show, both the presence of zero modes and the correspondence between $`\lambda _V=1`$ and $`\lambda _V=1`$ eigenstates of opposite chirality is preserved, as we found in our study, by the projection over a subset of physical states.

One possible scheme of approximation which is computationally very convenient consists of performing a projection over states of low momentum in Fourier space, after gauge fixing to a smooth gauge field configuration111A similar but gauge invariant procedure is described in  which, however, turns out to be numerically more expensive.. In a smooth gauge, because of the suppression of short-wavelength fluctuations due to asymptotic freedom, one expects the structure of the Wilson operator to become more and more diagonal in momentum space for increasing momenta. This notion is schematically illustrated in Fig. 3 and also underlies the technique of Fourier acceleration for the calculation of quark propagators .

Accordingly, we implemented the following approximation. For each configuration we factored out the topology, if any, as described in  and fixed the Landau gauge on the resulting configuration by demanding that the function

$$G=\underset{x,\mu }{}\mathrm{Re}[U_\mu (x)+U_\mu (xa\widehat{\mu })]$$
(15)
be maximal. A relaxation procedure produces several local maxima (Gribov copies). Among all these configurations, we selected the one that produced the maximum for $`G`$, subject to the further constraint that for all $`x`$ and $`\mu `$ $`\mathrm{Re}U_\mu (x)0.5`$. Eventually the gauge transformation obtained was applied to the original configuration.

Once the gauge has been fixed, the vector space on which the fermion matrix $`D`$ acts is divided into two parts: a long range (LR) sector spanned by the vectors of the Fourier basis $`|p_i`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{}n`$) with $`p_i^2<p_\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ and its complementary short range (SR) subspace. In the LR sector the matrix elements of the Wilson operator are computed and Neuberger’s operator is obtained with the unitarity projection in Eq. (1) and inverted. In the SR subspace the propagator is approximated by its free form. The approximated operator is $`\gamma _5`$-Hermitian and it satisfies the GW relation.

In Figs. 4 and (5) we compare the triplet meson correlation functions $`C_T(t)`$ obtained with the full Neuberger operator and with the approximated one for a configuration with trivial topology and for one with the topological charge $`Q=4`$. In Fig. (6) the triplet meson masses for the full solution and the Fourier approximation are reported. The LR subspace used is 1/4 of the full space. It is interesting to note that the approximated solution can be improved if used as preconditioning of the standard algorithms.

## 4 Multi-Grid Approximation for the Determinant

In the spirit of the long range approximation, another possibility that can be explored is the coarse graining of the gauge field . Starting from an arbitrary gauge configuration on an $`N\times N`$ lattice, we apply the blocking procedure sketched in Fig. 7 to obtain a gauge configuration on an $`\frac{N}{2}\times \frac{N}{2}`$ lattice, which carries all the relevant long range features of the large lattice.

The original lattice is divided into $`\frac{N}{2}\times \frac{N}{2}`$ blocks of $`2^2`$ sites. Each block, after the local Landau gauge is imposed, corresponds to a site of the coarse lattice. The remaining links are averaged as in Fig. 7 to give the corresponding links of the coarse lattice.

The absence of additive mass renormalization simplifies the definition of the Neuberger operator on the coarse lattice because no fine tuning of the mass parameter is needed. We calculated the fermion determinant on the blocked lattice and compared it to the one of the full lattice as shown in Fig. 8.

We incorporated the blocked determinant in the averages of the correlation functions. We compare these results with those obtained with the determinant of the full operator. For the pion masses the agreement is remarkable (see Fig. 9). We did the same for the massive Schwinger boson and the results are reported in the Table. Also in this case, even if the observables are more noisy, the agreement between the results is remarkable.

The application of these ideas to speed up QCD simulations with Neuberger fermions is in progress.


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# Evolution of the resonance and incommensurate spin fluctuations in superconducting YBa2Cu3O6+x

## I Introduction

The parent compounds of the high-transition-temperature (high-$`T_c`$) copper-oxide superconductors are antiferromagnetic (AF) insulators characterized by a simple doubling of the crystallographic unit cell in the CuO2 planes vaknin ; tranquada1 . When holes are doped into these planes, the long-range AF-ordered phase is destroyed and the lamellar copper-oxide materials become metallic and superconducting. This raises the fundamental question of the role of the magnetism in the superconductivity of these materials. Over the past decade, experimental probes such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), muon spin resonance ($`\mu `$SR), and neutron scattering have been used to address this fundamental question. In particular, neutron scattering experiments have unambiguously shown the presence of short-range AF spin correlations (fluctuations) in cuprate superconductors such as La2-xSrxCuO4 yoshizawa ; birgeneau ; cheong ; mason ; thurston ; yamada ; yamadaprl ; lake ; kastner  and YBa2Cu3O6+x mignod ; tranquada ; mook93 ; sternlieb ; fong95 ; bourges96 ; fong96 ; dai96 ; fong97 ; bourges97 ; dai98 ; mook98 ; mookn98 ; arai ; hayden98 ; dai99  at all doping levels, $`x`$. Even so, the role of such fluctuations in the pairing mechanism and superconductivity is still a subject of controversy conference .

If spin fluctuations are important for the mechanism of high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity, they should be universal for all copper oxide systems. For the La2CuO4 family of materials, which has a single CuO2 layer per unit cell, superconductivity can be induced by the substitution of Sr, Ba, or Ca for La or by intercalation of excess oxygen. The low-energy spin fluctuations have been observed at a quartet of incommensurate wave vectors (Fig. 1) away from the AF Bragg positions, often referred to as $`q_0=(\pi ,\pi )`$, in the $`x=0`$ compounds kastner . These modulated low-frequency spin fluctuations persist in both the normal and superconducting states with a suppression of their intensity below $`T_c`$ yamadaprl ; lake . As a function of the doping, the incommensurability $`\delta `$ increases linearly with $`x`$ until saturating at $`\delta 1/8`$ for $`x1/8`$ cheong ; yamada ; noteincommb . Furthermore, the incommensurability depends only on the doping level and the unbound charge introduced by the dopants, and not on the method for introducing the charge kastner . As a function of increasing frequency, the incommensurability does not change mason , and no particularly sharp features have been identified kastner . For YBa2Cu3O6+x, which has two CuO2 planes per unit cell (bilayer), the situation is more complex. Early measurements mignod ; mook93 ; fong95 ; bourges96 ; fong96  have shown that the most prominent feature in the spin fluctuations spectra in the highly doped YBa2Cu3O6+x ($`x0.9`$) is a sharp peak which appears below $`T_c`$ at an energy of $``$41 meV. When scanned at fixed energy as a function of wave vector, the sharp peak is centered at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ and generally referred to as a resonance. For underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x, the resonance also peaks at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ but with a reduced energy dai96 ; fong97 ; bourges97 . In YBa2Cu3O6.6, it occurs at 34 meV and is superposed on a continuum which is gapped at low energies dai99 . Below the resonance frequency, the continuum is actually strongest at a quartet of incommensurate positions consistent with those in La2-xSrxCuO4 of the same hole doping (Fig. 1) dai98 ; mook98 ; mookn98 . This discovery along with similar observations in YBa2Cu3O6.7 arai  suggests that incommensurate spin fluctuations may be universal to all high-$`T_c`$ superconductors.

In this article, we report systematic unpolarized and polarized inelastic neutron scattering studies of spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x. By carefully separating the magnetic signal from phonons and other spurious effects, we determine the wave vector and energy dependence of the spin dynamical susceptibility, $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(𝐪,\omega )`$, as a function of temperature and doping concentration. For YBa2Cu3O6+x with oxygen concentrations at all doping levels addressed in this article, we observe a spin gap in the superconducting state, a commensurate resonance, and incommensurate spin fluctuations at energies below the resonance. The magnitude of the spin gap in the superconducting state ($`E_{sg}`$) is proportional to $`k_BT_c`$ with $`E_{sg}/k_BT_c=3.8`$. The resonance appears above $`T_c`$ for underdoped compounds but occurs exclusively below $`T_c`$ for optimal and overdoped materials. The incommensurability of the excitations below the resonance decreases with increasing energy until merging into the resonance. For YBa2Cu3O6+x with $`x0.6`$, the incommensurability is approximately proportional to $`T_c`$. For oxygen concentrations $`x`$ above 0.6, the incommensurability is independent of hole-doping and saturates at $`\delta =1/10`$. In the case of YBa2Cu3O6.8, the commensurate low-frequency normal state magnetic excitations centered around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ are suppressed with the opening of a large spin gap in the superconducting state. For YBa2Cu3O6.93 and YBa2Cu3O6.95, the normal state spin fluctuations are below the detection limit of current triple-axis spectroscopy, and the magnetic fluctuations in the superconducting state are dominated by the well-discussed resonance at $`40`$ meV mignod ; mook93 ; fong95 ; bourges96 ; fong96  and incommensurate spin fluctuations below the resonance.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section describes the experimental procedures, including details of sample characterization and spectrometer setup. In Sec. IIIA, polarized and unpolarized neutron scattering data for YBa2Cu3O6+x with oxygen concentrations, $`x`$, of $`0.45`$, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.93, and 0.95 are presented with a detailed description of the procedures used to extract magnetic scattering. In Sec. IIIB, a comparison of the results with those for La2-xSrxCuO4 is presented. The issues of the doping dependence of the incommensurability, the spin gap in the superconducting state, the resonance in the normal state of underdoped materials, and resonance energy are addressed. Finally, the results presented in this paper and recent magnetic field dependence measurements of the spin fluctuations are discussed with the predictions and consequences of various theoretical models. Section IV gives a brief summary of the major conclusions of this work.

## II Experimental details

### II.1 Sample characterization

The experiments were performed on large twined crystals of YBa2Cu3O6+x that were prepared by the melt-grown technique at the University of Washington. As emphasized in previous publications mook93 ; dai96 , these samples contain considerable amounts of Y2BaCuO5 raveau  as an impurity. The structural and superconducting properties of these melt-grown YBa2Cu3O6+x samples with different Y2BaCuO5 concentrations have been studied in detail by Gopalan et al. gopalan . These authors found that the YBa2Cu3O6+x platelet width and crack width decrease with increasing Y2BaCuO5 content. The reduced average YBa2Cu3O6+x grain width may facilitate the formation of equilibrium crystal structures at various oxygen concentrations. In a recent study of oxygen equilibration and chemical diffusion in massive YBa2Cu3O6+x crystals, Lindemer lindemer  found that melt-grown samples containing a significant amount of Y2BaCuO5 reached their equilibrium values of oxygen concentration in a dynamic flow of oxygen considerably faster than samples without this impurity. These results are consistent with the notion that oxygen invariant Y2BaCuO5, micro-cracks, and the boundaries between twin grains are important in providing oxygen pathways through these large samples of YBa2Cu3O6+x.

For nonstoichiometric pure phase YBa2Cu3O6+x, Lindemer and coworkers lindemer1  have established the thermodynamic equilibrium phase diagram of oxygen concentration versus temperature and oxygen pressure ($`T`$-$`p`$). We oxygenate YBa2Cu3O6+x in a vacuum thermogravimetric apparatus (TGA) by annealing to the equilibrium weight ($`\pm 0.1`$ mg), equivalent to a sensitivity in $`6+x`$ of 0.0003 per mol, at $`T`$-$`p`$\[O2\] conditions for the desired oxygen doping following previously established models lindemer1 . Instead of quenching the sample after annealing, the partial pressure of oxygen in the TGA was adjusted during the cooling process to maintain a constant sample mass, thus ensuring uniformity in oxygen content and an equilibrium crystal structure. Seven single crystals of YBa2Cu3O6+x were oxygenated in this way to obtain $`x`$ of 0.45, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.93, and 0.95.

The superconducting properties of these YBa2Cu3O6+x crystals were characterized by a SQUID magnetometer. Susceptibility measurements made on small pieces cut from these samples show superconducting transition temperatures of $`48\pm 6`$ K, $`52\pm 3`$ K, $`62.7\pm 2.7`$ K, $`74\pm 2.7`$ K, $`82\pm 1.25`$ K, and $`92.5\pm 0.5`$ K, for YBa2Cu3O6.45, YBa2Cu3O6.5, YBa2Cu3O6.6, YBa2Cu3O6.7, YBa2Cu3O6.8, and YBa2Cu3O6.93, respectively. The transition temperature for YBa2Cu3O6.95 of 92 K is estimated from the temperature dependence of the resonance mook93 ; dai99 . Although the widths of superconducting transition temperatures for YBa2Cu3O6+x with $`x0.6`$ are usually sharp ($`<3`$ K), the transition widths for lower doping samples are considerably broader. This appears to be the intrinsic property of the underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x lindemer1 .

To quantitatively determine the effectiveness of this oxygenation technique and the composition of the melt-grown crystal, two pieces were cut from a 96-g sample of YBa2Cu3O6.93. Sample $`A`$ weighed approximately 15-g and was crushed into fine powder. Sample $`B`$ weighed 14.98-g. Powder diffraction measurements were performed on sample $`A`$ at room temperature using the HB-4 high-resolution powder diffractometer with an incident beam wavelength of 1.0314 Å at the High-Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory dai1 . Rietveld analysis of the powder data ($`R_{wp}=6.55\%`$, $`\chi ^2=1.447`$) revealed that the sample contains 83.6 mol% YBa2Cu3O6+x with the partial oxygen occupancies \[O(1)\] at $`0.96\pm 3`$ and 16.4 mol% Y2BaCuO5. The lattice parameters for the YBa2Cu3O6.93 \[$`a=3.8188(2)`$ Å, $`b=3.8856(2)`$ Å, and $`c=11.6920(5)`$ Å\] are slightly different from that of the YBa2Cu3O6.93 sample reported by Jorgensen et al. jorgensen , but they agree well with those of the YBa2Cu3O6+x ($`0.93x<1`$) crystals of Altendorf et al. altendorf .

To further verify the partial oxygen content, sample $`B`$ was subjected to independent thermogravimetric analysis. The 14.98-g specimen ($`B`$) was subjected to the de-oxygenation study in the TGA. The weight change of $`B`$ relative to the room-temperature weight was measured after equilibration at 573 K and at successively higher temperatures. The results were converted to $`6+x`$ values and compared to the expected behavior lindemer1 . This analysis demonstrated that the initial oxygen content of $`B`$ was $`6.93\pm 0.005`$, thus confirming the effectiveness of our oxygenation technique.

In an unpublished work, Chakoumakos and Lindemer chakoumakos  have systematically studied the lattice parameters of the powder YBa2Cu3O6+x oxygenated using this technique. They performed Rietveld analysis of the powder neutron diffraction data obtained on HB-4 for a series YBa2Cu3O6+x samples and established the relationship between oxygen concentration and lattice parameters (Fig. 2). High resolution measurements on the single crystals oxygenated in our study indicated that the lattice parameters have virtually the same value as powders. As a consequence, we used the lattice parameters established in their powder work for our single-crystal inelastic neutron scattering measurements.

### II.2 Neutron scattering

Inelastic neutron scattering measurements were made at HFIR using the HB-1 and HB-3 triple-axis spectrometers. The momentum transfer $`(q_x,q_y,q_z)`$ is measured in units of Å-1 and reciprocal space positions are specified in reciprocal lattice units (rlu) $`(h,k,l)=(q_xa/2\pi ,q_yb/2\pi ,q_zc/2\pi )`$, where $`a`$, $`b`$ ($`a`$), and $`c`$ are the lattice parameters of the orthorhombic unit cell of YBa2Cu3O6+x (see Figs. 1 and 2). The magnetic neutron scattering directly measures the imaginary part of the generalized spin susceptibility $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(𝐪,\omega )`$ for momentum transfer $`𝐪=𝐤_i𝐤_f`$ and energy transfer $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, where $`𝐤_i`$ and $`𝐤_f`$ are the incident and final neutron wave vectors, respectively. The scattering cross-section for an isotropic system lovesey  is

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}^2\sigma }{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{d}E}=\frac{2}{\pi g^2}\frac{k_f}{k_i}r_0^2|F(𝐪)|^2\frac{1}{1exp(\mathrm{}\omega /k_BT)}\chi ^{\prime \prime }(𝐪,\omega )/\mu _\mathrm{B}^2$$
(1)
where $`g`$ is the Lande factor ($`2`$), $`r_0`$ is $`5.4\times 10^{13}`$ cm, $`|F(𝐪)|`$ is the magnetic form factor, $`[n(\omega )+1]=1/[1exp(\mathrm{}\omega /k_BT)]`$ is the Bose population factor, and $`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton. The major difficulty in studying spin fluctuations in high-$`T_c`$ materials is to separate the magnetic scattering from (single- and multi-) phonon scattering and other spurious processes. While many spurious events such as accidental Bragg scattering can be identified by performing the desired inelastic scan in the two-axis mode tranquada , two approaches are used to separate magnetic from phonon scattering.

We first describe the use of neutron polarization analysis moon  which, in principle, can unambiguously separate magnetic from non magnetic processes. For the polarized experimental setup, a crystal of 57Fe(Si) \[$`d(110)=2.0202`$ Å\] and crystals of Heusler alloy Cu2MnAl \[$`d(111)=3.4641`$ Å\] were used as a monochromator and analyzer, respectively. The polarization state of the neutron beam can be changed by a spin-flipping device (Mezei coil) that is placed in the incident beam before the sample. The combination of a 57Fe(Si) (110) monochromator and a Heusler (111) analyzer permits spin-flip (SF) measurements without using the Mezei coil because the polarization of the neutrons scattered by the 57Fe(Si) is along the applied field direction while it is opposite for the Heusler crystal. For the measurements, the final neutron energy was fixed at 30.5 meV, and a pyrolytic graphite (PG) filter was used before the analyzer. The polarization is usually determined by measuring the flipping ratio $`R`$, defined as the ratio of neutrons reflected by the analyzer with the flipper (Mezei coil) “on” \[which corresponds to neutron nonspin flip (NSF), or $`++`$\] and “off” \[neutron spin-flip (SF) or $`+`$\]. Assuming the flipping ratios for guide field parallel (horizontal field or HF) and perpendicular (vertical field or VF) to the wave vector $`𝐪`$ are $`R_H`$ and $`R_V`$, respectively, the observed neutron cross sections for a paramagnetic system are given by moon ; note :

$`\mathrm{HF}:`$ $`\sigma _{ob}^+=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_H}{R_H+1}}(M+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}NSI+BG)+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_H+1}}(N+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}NSI+BG)`$
$`\sigma _{ob}^{++}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_H}{R_H+1}}(N+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}NSI+BG)+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_H+1}}(M+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}NSI+BG)`$
$`\mathrm{VF}:`$ $`\sigma _{ob}^+=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_V}{R_V+1}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}NSI+BG)+`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_V+1}}(N+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}NSI+BG)`$
$`\sigma _{ob}^{++}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_V}{R_V+1}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M+N+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}NSI+BG)+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_V+1}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}NSI+BG)`$
where $`M`$ is the magnetic, $`N`$ the nuclear, $`NSI`$ the nuclear spin incoherent neutron cross section, and $`BG`$ is the background. Inspection of Eq. \[2.2\] reveals that the most effective way to detect a magnetic signal is to measure SF scattering with HF. Although such method has been successfully used to identify the magnetic origin of resonance peaks in YBa2Cu3O6+x mook93 ; fong96 ; dai96 ; fong97 , the advantage of the technique comes at a considerable cost in intensity which makes it impractical for observing small magnetic signals.

As a consequence, most of our experiments were performed with unpolarized neutrons with Be (002) or PG (002) as monochromators as specified in the figure captions. In these experiments, we also used PG(002) as analyzers. Fast neutrons were removed from the incident beam by an in-pile sapphire filter, and PG filters were used to remove high-order neutron contaminations where appropriate. The horizontal collimations were controlled with Soller slits and are specified in the figures containing the experimental data. To separate the magnetic from phonon scattering, we utilize the differences in their temperature and wave vector dependence of the cross sections. While the phonon scattering gains intensity on warming due to the thermal population factor, the magnetic signal usually becomes weaker because it spreads throughout the energy and momentum space at high temperatures. In addition, magnetic intensity should decrease at large wave vectors due to the reduction in the magnetic form factor while phonon and multi-phonon scattering are expected to increase with increasing wave vector. Therefore, in an unpolarized neutron scattering measurement the net intensity gain above the multi-phonon background on cooling at appropriate wave vectors is likely to be magnetic in origin. Previous experiments have utilized this method to discover incommensurate spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6.6 dai98 .

Figure 1 depicts the reciprocal lattice of the YBa2Cu3O6+x $`𝐚^{}`$ ($`=2\pi /a`$), $`𝐛^{}`$ ($`=2\pi /b`$) directions shown in square lattice notation. Our crystals are all highly twined so we cannot distinguish $`𝐚^{}`$ from $`𝐛^{}`$. Because the CuO2 planes in YBa2Cu3O6+x actually appear in coupled bilayers that are separated by a much larger distance between the bilayer, spin fluctuations that are in-phase (acoustic or $`\chi _{ac}^{\prime \prime }`$) or out-of-phase (optical or $`\chi _{op}^{\prime \prime }`$) with respect to the neighboring plane will have different spectra mignod ; tranquada ; mook93 . It is therefore convenient to separate the magnetic response of YBa2Cu3O6+x into two parts $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(q_x,q_y,q_z,\omega )=\chi _{ac}^{\prime \prime }(q_x,q_y,\omega )\mathrm{sin}^2(q_zd/2)+\chi _{op}^{\prime \prime }(q_x,q_y,\omega )\mathrm{cos}^2(q_zd/2)`$, where $`d`$ (3.342 Å) is the spacing between the nearest-neighbor CuO2 planes along $`c`$. For the AF insulating parent compound YBa2Cu3O6, $`\chi _{ac}^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`\chi _{op}^{\prime \prime }`$ correspond to the acoustic and optical spin-wave excitations, respectively stephen96 ; reznik . Because the interesting features such as the resonance and incommensurate fluctuations mignod ; tranquada ; mook93 ; sternlieb ; fong95 ; bourges96 ; fong96 ; dai96 ; fong97 ; bourges97 ; dai98 ; mook98 ; mookn98 ; arai ; hayden98 ; dai99  are only observed in the acoustic channel of spin susceptibility $`\chi _{ac}^{\prime \prime }(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ and the optical fluctuations occur at higher energies than the acoustic excitations, we focused on the temperature, frequency, and composition dependence of spin excitations in the acoustic mode which has a modulation $`\mathrm{sin}^2(q_zd/2)`$ along the $`c`$-axis.

For this purpose, we used several crystal orientations and scattering geometries. Previous work by different groups mignod ; tranquada ; mook93 ; sternlieb ; fong95 ; bourges96 ; fong96 ; dai96 ; fong97 ; bourges97 ; dai98 ; mook98 ; mookn98 ; arai ; hayden98 ; dai99  were focused on the behavior of magnetic excitations for $`𝐪`$ in the $`(h,h,l)`$ and/or $`(h,3h,l)`$ zone. In view of the fact that the low frequency spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x peak at a quartet of incommensurate positions $`\delta `$ rlu away from $`(1/2,1/2)`$, $`(\pi ,\pi )`$, as depicted in Fig. 1 mookn98 , we scanned along the arrow direction in Fig. 1 from $`(0,1/2)`$ to $`(1,1/2)`$ with fixed $`l`$. To perform these scans, we first aligned the crystal with its  and  axes along the rotational axes of the lower ($`\alpha `$-axis) and upper ($`\chi `$-axis) arcs of the spectrometer goniometer, respectively. The crystal was then rotated $`\alpha =\mathrm{arctan}(c/2al)`$ degrees such that after the rotation the $`[1/2,0,0]`$ and $`[0,1/2,l]`$ axes were in the horizontal scattering plane. To access the maxima of acoustic spin fluctuations, we chose $`l2`$ or 5 rlu so the $`\omega `$ rotation angle would be approximately 37 or 17 degrees, respectively. One advantage of performing scans in this manner is that the scan direction is along the direction of incommensurate peaks and the narrow part of the resolution ellipse. As shown in Fig. 1, the narrow part of the spectrometer resolution matches the separation of the incommensurate peaks. Therefore, this is a favorable geometry to study the evolution of the incommensurate magnetic excitations. In addition to the new experimental geometry, we also used the conventional $`(h,3h,l)`$ zone as specified in the figure captions.

## III Results and discussion

### III.1 Wave vector and energy dependence of the acoustic spin fluctuations

We begin this section by noting that inelastic neutron scattering experiments over the last decade mignod ; tranquada ; mook93 ; sternlieb ; fong95 ; bourges96 ; fong96 ; dai96 ; fong97 ; bourges97 ; dai98 ; mook98 ; mookn98 ; arai ; hayden98 ; dai99  have provided valuable information about the evolution of the spin dynamics in YBa2Cu3O6+x. The key features of the spin excitations spectra include a gap in the superconducting state, a pseudogap in the normal state, the resonance peak, and the incommensurate fluctuations below the resonance. The observation of remarkable similarities in spin incommensurate structure for the bilayer YBa2Cu3O6.6 mookn98  and the single-layer La2-xSrxCuO4 of the same hole doping density yamada  suggests that incommensurate magnetic fluctuations may be a universal feature of the cuprate superconductors. For the La2-xSrxCuO4 system, Yamada and coworkers established the Sr-doping dependence of the incommensurability $`\delta `$ of the spin fluctuations and found a remarkable linear relationship between $`T_c`$ and $`\delta `$ yamada . In the case of YBa2Cu3O6+x, Balatsky and Bourges balatsky  suggested that a similar linear relationship exists between $`T_c`$ and the width in momentum space ($`q`$) of the “normal” spin fluctuations, i.e., fluctuations at frequencies away from the resonance. The authors argued that spin excitations of YBa2Cu3O6+x have two components and the low-energy incommensurate fluctuations are different than the commensurate resonance. The conclusions of balatsky  were reached based mostly on data where explicit incommensurability in the low-frequency spin fluctuations was not observed. Therefore, it is still not clear whether the linear relationship between $`T_c`$ and $`\delta `$ is a universal feature of the cuprates. Below, we present our systematic investigation of spin excitations in YBa2Cu3O6+x.

#### III.1.1 YBa2Cu3O6.45

As stressed in Sec. IIB, it is not a trivial matter to separate the magnetic scattering from phonon and other spurious processes in metallic crystals of YBa2Cu3O6+x. Although the use of polarized neutrons can provide an unambiguous measure of the magnetic and phonon scattering moon , the technique usually suffers from the limited flux available with polarized neutrons. Nevertheless, polarization analysis has distinctive advantages in separating the magnetic signal from phonon and other spurious processes. As an example, we show in Figure 3 the polarization analysis of the spin excitations for YBa2Cu3O6.45 at temperatures above and below $`T_c`$.

Because magnetic fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x are centered around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ with a sinusoidal modulation along the $`(0,0,l)`$ direction, we oriented the crystal in the $`(h,3h,l)`$ zone and searched for the magnetic signal with scans along $`(h,3h,1.7)`$ which corresponds to the maximum intensity of the acoustic modulation. Figures 3(a-c) show the raw data of SF scattering for $`\mathrm{}\omega =10`$, 15, and 24 meV at 60 and 11 K. The NSF scattering of the same scans are shown in Figs. 3(d-f). While SF scattering clearly peaks around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$, there are no similar features in the NSF scattering at the same position. Therefore, it is clear that the scattering around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ in the SF scattering are magnetic in origin. To quantitatively parameterize the SF scattering data, we used a Gaussian line shape on a linear background to fit the data as shown in solid lines in Figs. 3(a-c) mignod ; tranquada ; mook93 ; sternlieb ; fong95 ; bourges96 ; fong96 ; dai96 ; fong97 ; bourges97 . The scattering function $`S(𝐪,\omega )`$ for such line shape is related to the in-plane dynamical spin susceptibility $`\chi _{ac}^{\prime \prime }(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ by

$`S(𝐪,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`I(\omega )\mathrm{sin}^2(q_zd/2)\chi _{ac}^{\prime \prime }(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`I(\omega )\mathrm{sin}^2(q_zd/2)e^{\left[\mathrm{\Delta }q^2/2\sigma ^2\right]},`$
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐪=2\pi (h1/2,3h3/2,0)/a`$, $`I(\omega )`$ is the peak susceptibility and $`\sigma `$ is related to the half width at half maximum (HWHM) of the excitations via $`\mathrm{HWHM}=\sigma \sqrt{2ln2}`$.

Although polarization analysis is excellent in identifying the magnetic nature of Gaussian peaks around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$, the limited flux available with the technique means that detailed wave vector and energy dependence of the scattering need to be obtained with unpolarized neutrons. For this purpose, we realigned the sample in the $`[1/2,0,0]`$ and $`[0,1/2,l]`$ zone. Figure 4 shows the constant-$`q`$ scans at various temperatures at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$. The spectra consist of two major peaks at $`19`$ and 31 meV. While the intensity of the $`19`$ meV mode follows the Bose population factor $`[n(\omega )+1]`$ consistent with phonons, the scattering at $`30`$ meV decreases with warming which is indicative of its magnetic origin. As we shall demonstrate below, phonons are also present at $`31`$ meV. However, phonon scattering in this energy range is expected to change negligibly with temperature for $`T120`$ K. Therefore, the difference spectra in Fig. 4 can be regarded as changes in the dynamical susceptibility. Clearly, there are spectral weight enhancements around 30 meV with decreasing temperature above and below $`T_c`$. If we define the susceptibility gain on cooling above $`T_c`$ at the resonance energy as the precursor of the resonance, we find that the spectral weight of the resonance increases slightly from the normal to the superconducting state \[Fig. 4(b) and (c)\] and is only partially compensated by the loss at energies above it \[Fig. 4(c)\].

Figure 5 shows the momentum dependence of the response at energies above and below the magnetic resonance. At $`\mathrm{}\omega =6`$ meV, the scattering \[Fig. 5(a)\] is featureless around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$, suggesting the presence of a spin gap in the superconducting state pseudogap . On increasing the energy to 10 meV, the scattering shows a broad peak that can be well described by a single Gaussian centered at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$. At $`\mathrm{}\omega =16`$ meV, the profile around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ develops a flattish top similar to previous observations tranquada ; sternlieb . Although detailed analysis suggests that the profile is better described by a pair of peaks rather than a single Gaussian, well defined incommensurate peaks at $`\delta =0.054\pm 0.004`$ rlu from $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ are only observed at $`\mathrm{}\omega =24`$ meV \[Fig. 5(d)\]. At the resonance energy of $`30`$ meV, commensurate profiles are observed above and below $`T_c`$ \[Fig. 5(e)\]. For an energy above the resonance (at 38 meV), the peak appears to be commensurate in the normal state, but changes to a flat top (incommensurate) profile in the low-temperature superconducting state \[Fig. 5(f)\].

#### III.1.2 YBa2Cu3O6.5, YBa2Cu3O6.6, and YBa2Cu3O6.7

In this section, we discuss results on three samples with superconducting transition temperatures of 52 K, 62.7 K, and 74 K. The fractional hole concentration per Cu atom in the CuO2 sheet, $`p`$, for YBa2Cu3O6+x around the 60-K plateau phase is close to $`0.1`$ tallon . For the single-layer superconducting La1.9Sr0.1CuO4 which also has $`p=0.1`$, the incommensurability of the spin fluctuations is at $`\delta =0.1`$ yamada . The discovery of the same incommensurate structure and $`\delta `$ ($`0.1`$) for the equivalent hole concentration ($`p0.1`$) of the bilayer YBa2Cu3O6.6 mookn98  has generated considerable interests because such observation suggests that incommensurate spin fluctuations may be the common feature of these two most studied families of cuprates.

For La2-xSrxCuO4, it is generally believed that the presence of dynamic stripes is the microscopic origin of the observed incommensurate spin fluctuations tranquada95 . Thus, if the incommensurate spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x have similar behavior as La2-xSrxCuO4 at all doping concentrations, it is likely that dynamic stripes should also be present in the bilayer cuprates. Although the explicit incommensurate structure mookn98  and the one-dimensional nature of the incommensurate spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6.6 mook00  favor the dynamic striped-phase interpretation, the detailed energy and doping dependence of the incommensurate spin fluctuations is still lacking. In the discussions below, we attempt to remedy this situation.

We first describe measurements on YBa2Cu3O6.5. Although the rocking curves of all other crystals of YBa2Cu3O6+x show single Gaussian peaks with mosaic spreads of $``$1–2.5 degrees, the rocking curve around $`(0,0,6)`$ Bragg reflection for YBa2Cu3O6.5 displays two distinct peaks separated by $``$3 degrees. This means that the YBa2Cu3O6.5 sample is composed of two major grains $``$3 degrees apart. Figure 6 summarizes constant-$`q`$ scans at various temperatures at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ for YBa2Cu3O6.5. While the $``$20 meV phonons change negligibly from those for YBa2Cu3O6.45 (Fig. 4), there are two features in the raw spectra of Fig. 6(a) worth noting. First, the resonance energy shifted from $``$30.5 meV for YBa2Cu3O6.45 to $``$32 meV for YBa2Cu3O6.5. In addition, the spectral weight of the resonance relative to that of the 20 meV phonons is clearly enhanced in YBa2Cu3O6.5. This observation indicates that the intensity gain of the resonance in this material below $`T_c`$ is considerably bigger than that for YBa2Cu3O6.45. Similar to YBa2Cu3O6.45, there are magnetic spectral weight enhancements around the resonance energy above and below $`T_c`$. High intensity, low-resolution measurements in the $`[h,3h,l]`$ zone confirm this conclusion (Fig. 7).

To determine the magnitude of the spin gap and search for incommensurate spin fluctuations, we performed constant-energy scans at various energies along the $`[h,0.5,5]`$ direction above and below $`T_c`$ as shown in Fig. 8. At 10 and 16 meV, the scattering shows weak features around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$. This is different from YBa2Cu3O6.45 where spin fluctuations centered around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ are found at energies above 10 meV (Figs. 3 and 5). At 24 meV \[Fig. 8(c)\], the scattering displays a flattish top in both the normal and superconducting states notemosaic . At energies near \[27 meV, Fig. 8(d)\] and at the resonance \[31.5 meV, Fig. 8(e)\], the scattering narrows in width and increases in intensity. For an energy above the resonance, flattish top profiles indicative of incommensurate fluctuations are observed at 40 meV as shown in Fig. 8(f), which is similar to Fig. 5(f) of YBa2Cu3O6.45.

Next we describe measurements on YBa2Cu3O6.6 where the incommensurate spin fluctuations at 24 meV and the resonance at 34 meV have been extensively studied dai96 ; dai98 ; mook98 ; mookn98 ; dai99 . For completeness, we plot in Fig. 9 the difference spectra of constant-$`q`$ scans showing the presence of the 34 meV resonance above and below $`T_c`$. Detailed temperature evolution of the resonance and the magnitude of the spin gap has already been reported dai99 . To establish the energy dependence of the incommensurate spin fluctuations, we carried out high-resolution measurements using Be(002) as the monochromator and fixed the final neutron energy at 14.78 meV. Figure 10 shows a series of constant-energy scans at energies below and above the 34 meV resonance. Consistent with previous results dai98 ; mook98 ; mookn98 , constant-energy scans at 24 meV \[Fig. 10(a)\] show a pair of well-defined peaks separated by $`2\delta =0.20\pm 0.01`$ rlu in the low-temperature superconducting state and a flattish top profile just above $`T_c`$. Although the same scans at 27 meV and 30 meV also exhibit the same double peak structure below $`T_c`$ \[Figs. 10(b) and (c)\], the separation between the peaks or the incommensurabilities clearly decrease with increasing energy. In addition, the normal state flat top profile at 24 meV is replaced by a single Gaussian peak centered around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ at 30 meV. As energy increases, the scattering profile continues to sharpen, with the narrowest width and highest intensity profile occuring at the resonance energy \[Fig. 10(e)\]. When moving to energies above the resonance \[Figs. 10(f-h)\], the profiles increase in width and decrease in intensity. At 41 meV, the scattering becomes incommensurate in both the normal and superconducting states \[Fig. 10(h)\].

Finally, we discuss measurements for YBa2Cu3O6.7. Figure 11 shows the result of constant-$`q`$ scans above and below $`T_c`$. As the energy of the resonance moves up to 37 meV, the phonon scattering at 31 meV becomes more prominent. Constant-energy scans at several energies below the resonance are shown in Fig. 12. In contrast to the well-defined double peaks for YBa2Cu3O6.6 \[Fig. 10(a)\], the scattering at 24 meV and 27 meV \[Figs. 12(a) and (b)\] shows a very weak structure above and below $`T_c`$. For YBa2Cu3O6.6, the susceptibility increases on cooling from the normal to the superconducting state at the incommensurate positions, accompanied by a suppression of fluctuations at the commensurate point dai98 . In an attempt to determine whether the same is true for YBa2Cu3O6.7, we plot the difference spectra between 11 K and 80 K. As emphasized in an earlier study dai98 , these difference spectra can be simply regarded as changes in the dynamical susceptibility, i.e., $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(11K)\chi ^{\prime \prime }(80K)`$. Figures 12(d) and (e) show the outcome of this subtraction for 24 meV and 27 meV, respectively. For $`\mathrm{}\omega =24`$ meV, the difference spectrum shows negative scattering centered around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ with no evidence of susceptibility gain at the expected incommensurate positions. This is consistent with the opening of a 24 meV gap in the spin fluctuations spectra below $`T_c`$. At $`\mathrm{}\omega =27`$ meV, both the raw data \[Fig. 12(b)\] and the difference spectrum show evidence of incommensurate spin fluctuations at $`\delta 0.1`$ rlu, consistent with previous measurements using an integrated technique that gives a incommensurability of $`\delta =0.11\pm 0.01`$ mook98 . However, the clarity of incommensurate spin fluctuations is weak as compared to that for YBa2Cu3O6.6. Experiments on a different crystal of YBa2Cu3O6.7 by Arai et al. arai  show clear incommensurate spin fluctuations at $`\delta =0.11\pm 0.01`$ rlu. At energies close to the resonance ($`\mathrm{}\omega =34`$ meV and 37 meV), the scattering \[Figs. 12(c) and (f)\] shows conventional Gaussian profiles.

#### III.1.3 YBa2Cu3O6.8

Much of the discussion in this section will be focused on our analysis of separating phonon and spurious events from magnetic scattering for energies below the resonance. While the magnetic signal usually spreads throughout the energy and momentum space at high temperatures and becomes unobservable at any particular $`\mathrm{}\omega `$-$`Q`$ point, the intensity of phonons should follow the Bose statistics with increasing temperature. Therefore, careful measurements as a function of temperature and wave vector should allow the distinction of magnetic scattering from phonons.

As an example, we show in Fig. 13 raw constant-$`Q`$ scans at the wave vector $`𝐪=(0.5,0.5,5)`$ rlu at various temperatures. The comparison of the results for temperatures above and below $`T_c`$ \[Fig. 13(b)\] indicates a clear enhancement of the scattering at $`\mathrm{}\omega 40`$ meV, consistent with the presence of the resonance. In addition to the enhancement of the resonance, there are general intensity reductions in the scattering below $`30`$ meV from the normal to the superconducting state. Such intensity reductions at low energies are likely due to the drop in the single- and multi- phonon scattering although a simultaneous reduction in magnetic signal cannot be ruled out. Nevertheless, the strong enhancement of the scattering at $`\mathrm{}\omega =`$ $`20`$, $`31`$, and $`41`$ meV at 200 K \[Fig. 13(a)\] indicates that the peaks in the constant-$`Q`$ scans at these energies are mostly phonons in origin. To demonstrate the enhancement of the magnetic scattering on cooling above and below $`T_c`$, we show the difference spectra between low and high temperatures in two experimental geometries in Figs. 14 and 15. The data reveal two important features: first, the resonance in this underdoped compounds occurs at $`40`$ meV, almost identical to the optimally and overdoped doped compound mignod ; mook93 ; fong95 ; second, there is an enhancement of the magnetic signal around the resonance energy above $`T_c`$, consistent with the presence of a precursor for the resonance in the underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x dai99 .

To search for incommensurate spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6.8, we scanned along the wave vector $`[h,0.5,5]`$ direction at energies below and above the resonance. Figure 16 summarizes the low-resolution raw data at temperatures just above and well below $`T_c`$. At $`\mathrm{}\omega =16`$ meV \[Fig. 16(a)\], the scattering shows a sloped background with minimum intensity at around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ in both the normal and superconducting states. This suggests the existence of a normal state spin gap of 16 meV. On increasing the energy to $`\mathrm{}\omega =24`$ meV \[Fig. 16(b)\], the intensity of the broad peak around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ in the normal state is somewhat reduced below $`T_c`$ with no clear evidence of an incommensurate structure. A similar behavior is also observed at $`\mathrm{}\omega =28`$ meV \[Figs. 16(c)\]. The scattering profiles between the normal and superconducting states are almost indistinguishable at $`\mathrm{}\omega =32`$ meV and 52 meV \[Figs. 16(d) and (f)\]. Near the resonance energy \[Fig. 16(e)\], the scattering can be well described by Gaussians on linear backgrounds and shows a clear increase in intensity on entering the superconducting state from the normal state. In addition, the scattering at 200 K (open squares) shows a broad peak around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$, which indicates weak magnetic scattering at this temperature.

Since the scattering at 200 K is mostly nonmagnetic for energies below 39 meV \[Fig. 16(e)\], we systematically subtracted 200 K data from that obtained at lower temperatures. Figures 17(c-f) show the outcome of such procedure, and the net intensity gain around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ above the general reduction in the multi-phonon background should represent the enhancement of magnetic scattering at low temperatures. For $`\mathrm{}\omega =28`$ meV \[Fig. 17(c)\], the broad peak in the normal state vanishes below $`T_c`$, which suggests the enlargement of the normal state spin gap in the superconducting state. On increasing the energy to $`\mathrm{}\omega =32`$ meV, the scattering shows little change from the normal state to the superconducting state \[Figs. 17(d)\]. In addition, the maximum scattering intensity no longer seems to peak at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$, but shows weak evidence for incommensurate scattering. Unfortunately, the poor resolution of the measurements does not allow a conclusive identification of incommensurate spin fluctuations. At $`\mathrm{}\omega =39`$ meV \[Fig. 17(e)\], the enhancement of resonance in Fig. 16(e) is confirmed. Finally for an energy above the resonance ($`\mathrm{}\omega =52`$ meV), the scattering shows no observable change above and below $`T_c`$ \[Fig. 17(f)\].

Because the intensity of low energy phonons is more sensitive to the increasing temperature and the Bose population factor, the subtraction procedure described above does not work for low energy excitations. However, we can compare the difference spectra at temperatures just above and below $`T_c`$. At $`\mathrm{}\omega =16`$ meV \[Fig. 17(a)\], the difference spectra between 95 K ($`T_c+13`$ K) and 10 K ($`<T_c`$) show no identifiable feature which is consistent with the presence of a normal state spin gap. Similar subtraction at $`\mathrm{}\omega =24`$ meV shows a clear peak around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ \[Fig. 17(b)\] which indicates the suppression of 24 meV spin fluctuations in the superconducting state. Therefore, the normal state spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6.8 consist of a gap ($`16`$ meV) and broad excitations centered around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$. In the superconducting state, the normal state spin gap increases in magnitude, and the intensity of the low energy fluctuations is suppressed.

To further determine the magnitude of the spin gap in the superconducting state, we carried out high-resolution measurements with the neutron final energy fixed at $`E_f=14.78`$ meV. Figures 18(a-c) show constant-energy scans at $`\mathrm{}\omega =24`$, 30, and 39 meV. The difference spectra at $`\mathrm{}\omega =24`$ and 30 meV between low and high temperatures are shown in Figs. 18(d-f). Careful temperature dependent measurements suggest that the weak structure marked by arrows in the low temperature raw data of Figs. 18(a) and (b) is not magnetic in origin. The opening of the spin gap at $`\mathrm{}\omega =30`$ meV in the superconducting state is demonstrated by the difference spectra of Figs. 18(e) and (f), thus confirming the result of Fig. 17.

Finally, we present results on the incommensurate spin fluctuations at energies just below the resonance in YBa2Cu3O6.8. These high-resolution measurements were carried out on the HB-1 triple-axis spectrometer with $`E_f=13.6`$ meV. Following the procedures established above, we show in Fig. 19 the temperature difference spectra at $`\mathrm{}\omega =32`$, 34, 37, and 39 meV above and below $`T_c`$. Incommensurate spin fluctuations were observed below $`T_c`$ at $`\mathrm{}\omega =32`$, 34, and 37 meV. As in the case of YBa2Cu3O6.6, the incommensurability of these fluctuations decreases with increasing energy and becomes commensurate at the resonance energy. In addition, the incommensurability of YBa2Cu3O6.8 at $`\mathrm{}\omega 34`$ meV is essentially the same as in the more underdoped YBa2Cu3O6.6 at 24 meV \[Fig. 10(a)\]. However, the normal state spin fluctuations of YBa2Cu3O6.8 are clearly commensurate and centered around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ whereas the fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6.6 show a flattish top indicative of the incommensurability at temperatures above $`T_c`$. Therefore, the spin fluctuation spectrum in YBa2Cu3O6.8 has a gap in the normal state ($`\mathrm{}\omega 16`$ meV), a superconducting gap ($`\mathrm{}\omega 30`$ meV), a resonance at $`\mathrm{}\omega 39`$ meV, and commensurate-to-incommensurate transition for spin fluctuations below the resonance on entering the superconducting state.

#### III.1.4 YBa2Cu3O6.93 and YBa2Cu3O6.95

In the studies of ideally doped and overdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x, the important issues are the nature of the normal state magnetic scattering and the evolution of the incommensurate spin fluctuations. To determine whether there is detectable magnetic scattering around $`\mathrm{}\omega 40`$ meV in the normal state of YBa2Cu3O6.93 and YBa2Cu3O6.95, we performed a series of constant-$`Q`$ scans at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ at various temperatures below and above $`T_c`$. Figures 20 and 21 display the low temperature minus high temperature difference spectra for YBa2Cu3O6.93 and YBa2Cu3O6.95, respectively. In both compounds, we find the resonance peak at $`\mathrm{}\omega 40`$ meV below $`T_c`$ and no trace or reminiscence of the resonance above $`T_c`$ as seen in all of the underdoped materials. Careful constant-energy scans for YBa2Cu3O6.95 at $`\mathrm{}\omega =28`$, 30, 32 and 40 meV are shown in Figs. 22(a-c). The temperature difference spectra in Figs. 22(d-f) yield a spin gap value of $`\mathrm{}\omega =32`$ meV in the superconducting state and show no discernible normal state magnetic scattering fong95 .

To further elucidate the nature of the incommensurate spin fluctuations, we performed a series of constant-energy scans at energies just below the 40 meV resonance for highly doped YBa2Cu3O6.95. Figure 23 summarizes the outcome below and above $`T_c`$ at $`\mathrm{}\omega =34`$, 35.5, 37 and 40 meV. Clear incommensurate spin fluctuations were found at $`\mathrm{}\omega =34`$, 35.5, and 37 meV in the low temperature superconducting state. Surprisingly, the incommensurability of the fluctuations at $`\mathrm{}\omega =34`$ meV is $`\delta =0.11\pm 0.0128`$ rlu, which is indistinguishable from all the other underdoped compounds with $`x0.6`$. The incommensurability changes to $`\delta =0.089\pm 0.008`$ and $`0.084\pm 0.02`$ rlu for $`\mathrm{}\omega =35.5`$ meV and 37 meV, respectively. Although there are weak features in the constant-energy scans just above $`T_c`$ \[Figs. 23(a-d)\], careful temperature dependent studies of the constant-energy profiles indicate that these features are nonmagnetic in origin \[Fig. 23(e), open circles\]. Thus, incommensurate fluctuations in highly doped YBa2Cu3O6+x appear only in the low temperature superconducting state at energies close to the resonance. Furthermore, the incommensurabilities of the low energy spin fluctuations are insensitive to the doping for YBa2Cu3O6+x with $`x0.6`$ and saturate at $`\delta =1/10`$. In contrast, incommensurate spin fluctuations in the single-layer La2-xSrxCuO4 near optimal doping survive to temperatures well above $`T_c`$ aeppli , and the incommensurabilities of the low energy spin fluctuations increase smoothly to the saturation value of $`\delta =1/8`$ for materials with optimal doping yamada .

### III.2 Discussion

#### III.2.1 Doping dependence of the incommensurability

The existence of incommensurate spin fluctuations now appears to be a common feature of the YBa2Cu3O6+x family of superconductors noteincomm . Such fluctuations have also been observed in Sr2+\- and oxygen- doped samples of La2CuO4 kastner . Thus, it becomes clear that incommensurability is the common feature between these two classes of the most studied superconductors. However, before attempting any quantitative comparison of the similarities between YBa2Cu3O6+x and La2-xSrxCuO4, we must first consider the number of holes ($`p`$) in the CuO2 plane in these two systems. For La2-xSrxCuO4, Yamada and coworkers yamada  found an excellent linear relationship between $`\delta `$ and the effective hole concentration up to around $`p0.12`$. Moreover, the incommensurability $`\delta `$ is energy independent for $`\mathrm{}\omega <15`$ meV mason . The situation for YBa2Cu3O6+x is more subtle. Using the established approximate parabolic relationship $`T_c/T_{c,max}=182.6(p0.16)^2`$, where $`T_{c,max}`$ is the maximum transition temperature of the system, and $`p`$ is the hole-doping tallon , we can calculate the effective hole doping $`p`$ of YBa2Cu3O6+x from their $`T_c`$ values. However, as shown in Figs. 5, 10, 19, and 23, the incommensurability in YBa2Cu3O6+x decreases with increasing energy close to the resonance. As a consequence, it is difficult to compare directly the doping dependence of the incommensurability in these two families of materials as $`\delta `$ is not a well defined quantity for YBa2Cu3O6+x. In order to make such comparison, we chose to systematically use the $`\delta `$ for the incommensurate low frequency spin fluctuations furthest away in energy from the resonace.

In Figure 24, we plot the incommensurability $`\delta `$ obtained in such procedure as a function of $`p`$. For completeness, we also included the data of Arai et al. (open square) for YBa2Cu3O6.7 arai  and very recent data of Bourges et al. (filled square) for YBa2Cu3O6.85 bourges2000 . As we can see from the figure, the incommensurability increases initially with doping, but it saturates quickly at $`\delta 0.1`$ for hole doping $`p0.1`$. This result is different from La2-xSrxCuO4 where the incommensurability is found to be linear with $`\delta `$ until reaching $`0.125`$ at large doping yamada . For La2-xSrxCuO4, the saturation of incommensurability above $`x0.12`$ appears to be related to the saturation of the density of O($`2p`$)-type holes in the CuO2 plane as suggested from optical measurements uchida . In the case of YBa2Cu3O6+x, the incommensurability saturates for $`x0.6`$ whereas the hole concentration $`p`$ in the CuO2 plane continues to increase with increasing oxygen doping and $`T_c`$ tallon . Therefore, the saturation of the incommensurability in YBa2Cu3O6+x may have a different microscopic origin from that of La2-xSrxCuO4.

Although it is interesting to compare the incommensurability as a function of effective hole concentration in the CuO2 plane of YBa2Cu3O6+x and La2-xSrxCuO4, a more robust test of the similarities in these two families of materials can be made by comparing the relation between $`T_c`$ and $`\delta `$ because these two quantities are free from any uncertainties associated with the doping level or oxygen stoichiometry. For La2-xSrxCuO4, Yamada et al. found a linear relationship between $`T_c`$ and $`\delta `$ up to the optimal doping regime yamada . Using $`T_c=\mathrm{}\nu _{214}^{}\delta `$, Balatsky and Bourges balatsky  extracted a velocity $`\mathrm{}\nu _{214}^{}=20`$ meVÅ. For YBa2Cu3O6+x, these authors suggested a similar linear relation between $`T_c`$ and the $`q`$ width in momentum space, $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ (HWHM), for the whole doping range: $`T_c=\mathrm{}\nu ^{}\mathrm{\Delta }q`$, with $`\mathrm{}\nu ^{}=35`$ meVÅ. They then claimed strong similarities in the magnetic states of YBa2Cu3O6+x and La2-xSrxCuO4 balatsky . In Fig. 25, we plot the relation between $`T_c`$ and the measured incommensurability $`\delta `$ for YBa2Cu3O6+x in the whole doping range. For superconducting transition temperatures below $``$60 K, our data are consistent with the proposed linear relation between $`T_c`$ and $`\delta `$ with $`\mathrm{}\nu ^{}=36.6`$ meVÅ balatsky . However, the incommensurability is essentially unchanged for all samples with $`T_c`$ larger than 60 K. Therefore, if there were excitations associated with such a velocity, its magnitude would approach infinity for samples with transition temperatures above 60 K.

#### III.2.2 Doping dependence of the spin gap in the superconducting state

One of the salient features of the spin excitations spectra in YBa2Cu3O6+x is the presence of spin gaps in the normal and superconducting states. For example, the low-energy spin fluctuations of YBa2Cu3O6.8 show well defined Gaussian peaks centered around $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ at energies above 24 meV in the normal state. On cooling the system to below $`T_c`$, the normal state scattering is suppressed which indicates the opening of a gap in the spin fluctuation spectrum (Figs. 17 and 18). In Figure 26, we plot the magnitude of the spin gap in the low temperature superconducting state as a function of $`T_c`$ for the whole doping range. The solid line shows the linear relation between $`T_c`$ and the magnitude of the spin gap ($`E_{sg}`$) up to the optimal doping with $`E_{sg}/k_BT_c=3.8`$. This empirical result connects directly the spin gap and the superconductivity. The value of $`E_{sg}/k_BT_c=3.8`$ is not far away from the $`2\mathrm{\Delta }/k_BT_c=3.52`$ for the weak-coupling limit of the BCS theory of superconductivity, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the superconducting gap. For samples with low oxygen doping and low $`T_c`$, the linear relation between $`T_c`$ and $`E_{sg}`$ breaks down, possibly due to the oxygen doping inhomogeneity and broad superconducting transitions in weakly-doped materials.

#### III.2.3 Doping dependence of the resonance and superconducting condensation energy

Among the many interesting features observed in the spin excitations spectra of YBa2Cu3O6+x, perhaps the most-discussed is the collective acoustic spin excitation named the “resonance”. First reported by Rossat-Mignod et al. mignod  for YBa2Cu3O6.92, the resonance at $``$40 meV in the highly doped YBa2Cu3O6+x was shown to be magnetic in origin, narrow in energy mook93 , and to appear exclusively below $`T_c`$ fong95 . In subsequent experiments dai96 ; fong97 ; bourges97 , the resonance was also found in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x with the resonance energy ($`E_r`$) approximately scaling with $`T_c`$: $`E_rk_BT_c`$. Consistent with previous results balatsky , the coherence length of the resonance ($`\xi `$) is weakly doping dependent except for YBa2Cu3O6.6 which has considerably larger $`\xi `$ than for all the other dopings (Fig. 27). The coherence length of the incommensurate spin fluctuations (Fig. 28) also appears to be weakly doping dependent. In addition, we note that on approaching the optimal oxygen doping for YBa2Cu3O6+x, the resonance energy ($`E_r`$) is insensitive to the changing $`T_c`$ (Fig. 29). Therefore, the linear relationship between $`E_r`$ and $`T_c`$ appears to break down for materials with oxygen concentrations close to its optimal doping. Finally, we compared the peak intensity of the lowest-energy observable incommensurate fluctuations with that of the resonance (Fig. 30). While the ratio clearly decreases with increasing doping for $`p0.1`$, it saturates to a value of $``$ 0.25 for $`p0.1`$.

One interesting aspect of the resonance peak is its unusual temperature dependence. For optimal ($`x=0.93`$) and over doped ($`x=1`$) samples, the onset of the resonance occurs at a temperature $`T^{}`$ which almost coincides with $`T_c`$ mook93 . For underdoped $`x=0.8`$ and 0.6, $`T^{}`$ increases to temperatures well above $`T_c`$ while both $`T_c`$ and the resonance energy itself are reduced dai99 . By empirically comparing the cross-over temperature $`T^{}`$ and the pseudogap temperature obtained by other techniques ito ; wuyts ; takigawa , we associate the initial occurrence of the resonance with the pseudogap temperature dai99 . In recent published fong2000a  and unpublished bourges2000a  papers, Bourges et al. bourges2000a  claimed that there is no justification for a separation of the normal state spin excitations spectrum into resonant and nonresonant parts. Although these authors agreed that the broad maximum of the spin susceptibility in the normal state occurs at the same energy as the resonance peak in some underdoped materials dai99 ; bourges2000b , they argued that “the apparent equivalence of the normal state energy and the resonance peak energy breaks down in underdoped samples closer to optimal doping” bourges2000a .

Here we point out that the claims by Bourges et al. are incorrect. As can be seen from our results in Sec. IIIA1–3, there are clear enhancements in the spin susceptibility around the resonance energy at temperatures above $`T_c`$ for all the underdoped compounds including YBa2Cu3O6.8. These observations are in sharp contrast to the claims of Bourges et al. bourges2000a . Moreover, from the temperature dependence of the resonance intensity as a function of doping dai99 , we find that the intensity of the resonance changes smoothly and shows progressively larger pretransitional regime above $`T_c`$ as a function of decreasing doping. As a consequence, it is natural to associate the enhancement of the spin susceptibility above $`T_c`$ around the resonance energy in underdoped materials as the precursor of the resonance.

We also emphasize that the temperature dependence of the resonance dai99  is closely related to the thermodynamics of YBa2Cu3O6+x near $`T_c`$ loram  and hence the superconducting condensation energy scalapinowhite ; demlerzhang ; sudip1 ; norman1 . If the electronic entropy changes around $`T_c`$ are mostly due to spin excitations dai99 , they must respond to an external magnetic field in qualitatively the same way janko . In a conventional type-II BCS superconductor schrieffer , the effect of a field is to simply shift the superconducting specific heat anomaly ($`C^{el}(x,T)`$) to lower temperatures and to reduce its amplitude until the upper critical field, $`B_{c2}(0)`$, is reached junod1 . For high-$`T_c`$ superconductors such as YBa2Cu3O6+x, the electronic specific heat anomaly near $`T_c`$ is drastically suppressed by a moderate field along the $`c`$-axis while it is little affected by the same field parallel to the $`ab`$-plane junod2 .

In a recent experiment on YBa2Cu3O6.6 dai2000 , we discovered that a moderate magnetic field ($`B=6.8`$ T) along the direction approximately perpendicular to the CuO2 planes ($`c`$-axis) can drastically suppress the intensity of the resonance at 34 meV while leaving other scattering relatively unaltered. Similar, but much smaller effect also occurs for the same field parallel to the CuO2 planes. Our results thus provide further support for the intimate connection between the magnetic excitation spectrum and thermodynamics of high-$`T_c`$ superconductors dai99 . The persistence of a field effect above $`T_c`$ is consistent with the precursor of the resonance in the normal state of the underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x.

#### III.2.4 Stripes versus Fermi-liquid

Fermi-liquid theory, based on the premise that electron correlation effects in the metallic state of matter correspond to the noninteracting “quasiparticles” on a Fermi surface, has been successful in solving many of the important problems in condensed-matter physics, including conventional superconductivity. In the case of copper-oxides, where high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity is obtained by hole-doping of the AF insulating parent compounds, an important class of models zaanen ; schulz ; poilblanc ; kivelson  argues that electrons in these materials cannot be described by quasiparticles and Fermi-liquid theory. Rather, the electrons have been incorporated in complex, inhomogeneous (fluctuating) patterns of the charge and spin confined to separate linear regions in the crystal resembling “stripes” orenstein . Since their discovery yoshizawa ; birgeneau ; cheong ; mason ; thurston ; yamada ; yamadaprl ; lake ; kastner , the incommensurate spin fluctuations in the superconducting La2-xSrxCuO4 have been interpreted as due to the presence of dynamic spin stripes zaanen1 ; emery ; whitescalapino ; martins  or as the consequence of spin-flip scattering across a nested Fermi surface bulut1 ; si ; littlewood ; brinckmann ; morr ; kao ; norman2 . In 1995, Tranquada and coworkers tranquada95  found evidence supporting the former interpretation in a closely related material La1.88-yNdySr0.12CuO4. For Nd substitution of $`y=0.4`$, the distortion of the crystal structure causes the condensation of the incommensurate spin fluctuations in Nd-free La2-xSrxCuO4 into a spin density wave (SDW) at the same wave vector tranquada95 . The analysis of the elastic magnetic SDW peaks and their corresponding charge-ordering peaks associated with the modulation of the underlying lattice indicate the presence of a static striped phase in La1.88-yNdySr0.12CuO4. This strongly suggests that the incommensurate fluctuations in superconducting La2-xSrxCuO4 are a fluctuating version (dynamic) of the stripes.

However, if the stripe picture is universal for all high-$`T_c`$ superconductors, it should also be able to explain the incommensurate spin fluctuations of YBa2Cu3O6+x. In the case of La2-xSrxCuO4, the incommensurability saturates at “1/8”. Whereas the incommensurability of the low-energy spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x follows the expected linear behavior as a function of $`T_c`$ for low doping materials yamada  but abruptly saturates at “1/10” for $`x0.6`$. This could mean that the minimum stripe spacing in YBa2Cu3O6+x is five unit cells compared to four in La2-xSrxCuO4 tranquada95 . However, the reduction of the incommensurability with increasing energy close to the resonance in YBa2Cu3O6+x, first reported by Arai et al. arai  and subsequently confirmed by Bourges et al. bourges2000  in underdoped compounds, is different from the energy independent incommensurability of the low-frequency spin fluctuations in La2-xSrxCuO4 mason . In addition, the incommensurate fluctuations in La2-xSrxCuO4 are observed at temperatures well above $`T_c`$ aeppli . Such fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x are present above $`T_c`$ for underdoped compounds, but for highly doped materials they are only found close to the resonance in the superconducting state.

At present, it remains unclear how to explain the observed behavior differences in these two families of materials from a stripe model. In particular, the saturation of the incommensurability at $`\delta =1/10`$ for effective hole concentration $`p0.1`$ (Fig. 24) is puzzling. Assuming that the incommensurate spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x at all doping levels are due to dynamic stripes composed of the hole-rich metallic regions separated by the antiphase insulating domains tranquada95 , one would expect the growth of the metallic stripes with increasing doping at the expense of the insulating domains zaanen ; schulz ; poilblanc ; kivelson . As a consequence, the incommensurability should increase with increasing hole doping which is in contrast to the observation of a saturating $`\delta `$ for YBa2Cu3O6+x with $`x0.6`$.

Although we have emphasized the differences, the incommensurate spin fluctuations for these two classes of materials also have remarkable similarities in their structure and doping dependence for oxygen concentrations $`x0.6`$ ($`p0.1`$). These similarities and the one-dimensional nature of the incommensurate spin fluctuations in underdoped YBa2Cu3O6.6 mook00  and the associated phonon anomaly mookn99a  are consistent with the stripe formation in YBa2Cu3O6+x for effective hole doping below 0.1. To truly understand the microscopic origin of the incommensurate spin fluctuations in different cuprates using a stripe model, perhaps one needs to first explain the presence of resonance in the bilayer compounds, which takes much of the weight of the total magnetic scattering, and its absence in the single-layer materials mook00 . For highly doped materials, the incommensurate spin fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x appears to be intimately related to the resonance as they occur only at energies very close to the resonance. From the magnetic field dependence of the spin excitations dai2000 , it is clear that the resonance measures the pairing and long-range phase coherence. Thus, if a stripe model can explain the resonance, it may also be able to account for the differences in the incommensurability in La2-xSrxCuO4 and YBa2Cu3O6+x.

Alternatively, assuming that the observed incommensurate fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x come from a nested Fermi surface brinckmann ; morr ; kao ; norman2 , one may ask whether such models can predict the observed intensity and doping dependent behavior. Unfortunately, there are no explicit predictions about the doping dependence of the incommensurability and its relationship with the resonance from a nested Fermi surface model that can be directly compared with our experiments. Therefore, it is still not clear whether the observed incommensurate fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x are consistent with the Fermi-liquid description at all doping levels. In particular, the abrupt saturation of the incommensurability for YBa2Cu3O6+x with $`x0.6`$ suggests that the physics accounting for this behavior may have a different microscopic origin from that of the lower doping compounds.

#### III.2.5 Models for the resonance

Since the discovery of the resonance in highly doped and underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x mignod ; mook93 ; fong95 ; bourges96 ; fong96 ; dai96 ; fong97 ; bourges97 , many fundamentally different microscopic mechanisms have been proposed to explain its origin. In the earlier theoretical studies maki ; lercher ; lavagna ; onufrieva , the resonance is interpreted as the consequence of the $`d`$-wave gap symmetry of the cuprate superconductors. Subsequent workers have noticed that $`d`$-wave superconductivity alone is insufficient to explain the resonance, and that very strong Coulomb correlations among electrons must also play an important role. In some models, the band structure anomaly effects alone can produce a peak in spin susceptibility that grows with the opening of the superconducting gap blumberg ; abrikosov ; yin , while other workers have applied a random-phase approximation (RPA) to treat the effects of strong Coulomb correlations with the Lindhard function appropriate for either a Fermi liquid bulut ; liu ; mazin ; millis  or a spin-charge separated metal brinckmann ; tanamoto ; normand . In particular, the resonance has been treated as a disordered magnon-like collective mode in the particle-hole channel whose energy is bound by the superconducting energy gap morr ; abanov ; sachdev . Using a completely different approach demler , the resonance is viewed as a pseudo-Goldstone boson mode in the particle-particle channel instead of the more conventional particle-hole channel. In the framework of this theory, antiferromagnetism and $`d`$-wave superconductivity in copper oxides are treated in equal footing sczhang , and resonance is directly responsible for the superconducting condensation energy demlerzhang .

While the purpose of this article is not to review the similarities and differences among various models of the resonance, we wish to make several general remarks in light of the results described here and in recent field-dependent studies of the resonance dai2000 . First, it is now clear that the incommensurability and the resonance are inseparable parts of the general features of the spin dynamics in YBa2Cu3O6+x at all dopings. Thus any microscopic model used to describe the resonance must also be able to explain the doping and energy dependence of the incommensurate spin fluctuations. While current theoretical models do not provide explicit predictions that can be directly compared our experiments voo , it is hoped that the work described here will stimulate future theoretical efforts in this direction. The remarkable field dependence of the resonance dai2000  indicates that it measures the superconducting pairing and phase coherence. In particular, the larger $`c`$-axis field effect is difficult to understand within the framework of the interlayer tunneling theory, according to which the resonance should be strongly affected by the in-plane field that disrupts the coherent Josephson coupling along $`c`$-axis yin . On the other hand, the field data dai2000  are consistent with mechanism where the dominant loss of entropy on entering the superconducting state is due to the growth of magnetic correlations in the CuO2 planes scalapinowhite ; demlerzhang ; sudip1 . Finally, if the resonance is a magnon-like collective mode morr ; abanov ; sachdev , it must not be a spin-wave in the conventional sense as the intensity of spin-wave excitations in ferromagnets and antiferromagnets should be magnetic field independent for the relatively small fields used lovesey ; dai2000 .

## IV Summary and Conclusions

In this article, we have described in detail the extensive polarized and unpolarized neutron measurements of the dynamical magnetic susceptibility $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(𝐪,\omega )`$ of superconducting YBa2Cu3O6+x above and below the transition temperature $`T_c`$. Using a careful polarization and temperature dependence analysis, we find that the resonance and incommensurate spin fluctuations are general features of the spin dynamical behavior in YBa2Cu3O6+x for all oxygen doping levels. We establish the doping dependence of the incommensurability, the resonance, and the superconducting spin-gap energy. In the superconducting state, we find that the spin-gap energy is proportional to $`k_BT_c`$, but the resonance energy itself deviates from the linear behavior with $`k_BT_c`$ for oxygen doping close to the optimal values. Similarly, we show that the doping dependence of the incommensurability saturates to $`\delta =0.1`$ for oxygen doping $`x0.6`$. We compare the observed behaviors in the two most studied superconducting copper-oxides La2-xSrxCuO4 and YBa2Cu3O6+x and discuss their similarities and differences. We stress that any comprehensive theoretical understanding of the spin dynamical behavior in these two families of materials must take into account the fact that the resonance so clearly seen in the bilayer YBa2Cu3O6+x is absent in the single-layer La2-xSrxCuO4. For underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x, the evolution of the resonance as a function of doping is illustrated. In particular, we find the enhancement of the susceptibility at the resonance energy above $`T_c`$ for all underdoped compounds including YBa2Cu3O6.8. If we define the “resonance” as the enhancement of the susceptibility in a small energy range of the magnetic excitations spectra as a function of decreasing temperature, it is natural to associate the susceptibility gain around the resonance energy above $`T_c`$ in the underdoped compounds as the precursor of the resonance. This assertion is supported by the systematic studies of the evolution of the temperature dependence of the resonance that show the progressively larger pretransitional regime above $`T_c`$ for more underdoped YBa2Cu3O6+x dai99 . Furthermore, the resonance and incommensurate fluctuations appear to be intimately connected. Thus, any microscopic model for the magnetic fluctuations in YBa2Cu3O6+x must be able to account for both the incommensurate spin fluctuations and the resonance.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to G. Aeppli, S. Chakravarty, T. Egami, V. J. Emery, S. M. Hayden, S. A. Kivelson, D. K. Morr, D. Pines, D. J. Scalapino, J. Zaanen, and S. C. Zhang for many enlightening discussions. We also wish to thank J. A. Fernandez-Baca, Jiandi Zhang, and S. C. Zhang for a critical reading of the manuscript, to thank J. R. Thompson and K. J. Song for measuring the superconducting transition temperatures for all the samples discussed in this article, and to thank B. C. Chakoumakos and T. B. Lindemer for allowing the use of their unpublished data. Finally, we acknowledge much technical support over the years by R. G. Maple, S. A. Moore, G. B. Taylor, and C. M. Redmon. This work was supported by U.S. DOE under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC.