Spin-Charge Binding Mechanism for Superconductivity in Cuprates

A spin-charge recombination route to superconductivity, proposed earlier (1992)], is examined using the Schwinger boson representation of the t-J model. The representation is known to work well at half-filling. It was shown in the earlier paper that, away from half filling, spin-charge recombination into electrons occurs directly through the hopping term as the system tries to recover the kinetic energy lost in forming the "spins" (magnetic moments). Recombination is strong enough in 2-D to (1) destroys long-range magnetic order and (2) restores the large Fermi surface. But the normal state remains incoherent, characterize by a Fermi liquid of holons and bosonic spinons which are paired into singlets. The singlets evolve out of half-filling and are responsible for the spin-gap behavior. They induce a pairing of holons and bind with the latter (to recover additional kinetic energy). In this paper we show that $d_{x^2-y^2}$ symmetry of the order parameter and the shape of the T_c vs doping curve, observed in cuprate superconductors, emerge naturally as a consequence of the symmetry of the spinon pairs. The latter symmetry (p-wave), however, is already determined at half-filling. Thus the nature of the superconducting state is intimately connected with that of quantum spin fluctuations in the insulator!