This paper exposes in a detailed manner the recent findings about the SU(2) scenario for the underdoped phase of the cuprate superconductors. The SU(2) symmetry is formulated as a rotation between the $d$-wave superconducting (SC) phase and a $d$-wave charge order. We define the operators responsible for the SU(2) rotations and we derive the nonlinear $\sigma$ model associated with it. In this framework, we demonstrate that SU(2) fluctuations are massless in finite portions of the Brillouin zone corresponding to the antinodal regions $\left(0,\pi \right)$ and $\left(\pi ,0\right)$. We argue that the presence of SU(2) fluctuations in the antinodal region leads to the opening of Fermi arcs around the Fermi surface and to the formation of the pseudogap. Moreover, we show that SU(2) fluctuations lead, in turn, to the emergence of a finite momentum SC order—or pair density wave (PDW)—and more importantly to a new kind of excitonic particle-hole pairs liquid, the resonant excitonic state (RES), which is made of patches of preformed particle-hole pairs with multiple momenta. When the RES liquid becomes critical, we demonstrate that electronic scattering through the critical modes leads to anomalous transport properties. This new finding can account for the strange metal (SM) phase at finite temperature, on the right-hand side of the SC dome, shedding light on another notoriously mysterious part of the phase diagram of the cuprates.

• Received 21 November 2016
• Revised 8 February 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.104510