Strong coupling superconductivity, pseudogap and Mott transition

Abstract: An intricate interplay between superconductivity, pseudogap and Mott transition, either bandwidth driven or doping driven, occurs in materials. Layered organic conductors and cuprates offer two prime examples. We provide a unified perspective of this interplay in the two-dimensional Hubbard model within cellular dynamical mean-field theory on a $2\times 2$ plaquette and using the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo method as impurity solver. Both at half filling and at finite doping, the metallic normal state close to the Mott insulator is unstable to d-wave superconductivity. Superconductivity can destroy the first-order transition that separates the pseudogap phase from the overdoped metal, yet that normal state transition leaves its marks on the dynamic properties of the superconducting phase. For example, as a function of doping one finds a rapid change in the particle-hole asymmetry of the superconducting density of states. In the doped Mott insulator, the dynamical mean-field superconducting transition temperature $T_c^d$ does not scale with the order parameter when there is a normal-state pseudogap. $T_c^d$ corresponds to the local pair formation temperature observed in tunneling experiments and is distinct from the pseudogap temperature.