On the coherent quasiparticle weight in high-Tc cuprates

The anomalous temperature dependence of the coherent quasiparticle weight below the superconducting transition temperature Tc in high-Tc cuprates, as has been extensively revealed by angle-resolved photoemission measurements, has been addressed theoretically. We find that this puzzling phenomenon universally appears along the whole Fermi surface, from the nodal to antinodal regions, in momentum space, and can be well comprehended in a mean-field slave-boson picture. The ordinary deduction that the coherent quasiparticle peak is a superconducting one, just from such temperature dependence of the coherent quasiparticle weight below Tc, is found to be questionable, and it could correspond to a competing order, especially in the antinodal region.