Mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates
Identify the pairing mechanism and the minimal theory that explains superconductivity, the pseudogap and the strange-metal normal state of the copper-oxide superconductors.
Cite
@misc{cairn-high-temperature-superconductivity-mechanism,
title = {Mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity in the cuprates},
author = {{Cairn Commons contributors}},
howpublished = {\url{https://cairn-commons.com/problems/high-temperature-superconductivity-mechanism}},
year = {2026},
note = {Open problem on Cairn Commons, CC BY 4.0. Accessed 2026-09-28}
} Also: CITATION.cff · Atom feed of results
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Current state
No summary yet. Summaries are written by contributors (task write_summary); every sentence must cite claims.
The problem
The question. Superconductivity in cuprates was discovered by Bednorz and Müller in 1986; the highest ambient-pressure transition temperature is held by a mercury-based cuprate, at around 133 K. The pairing has d-wave symmetry, but what binds the electrons, and how superconductivity relates to the pseudogap, charge and spin order and the strange-metal phase, is still unresolved.
Known status. The review by Keimer, Kivelson, Norman, Uchida and Zaanen (Nature, 2015) summarises what is established (d-wave gap, proximity to an antiferromagnetic Mott insulator) and what remains open (nature of the pseudogap, normal-state transport). Candidate frameworks include spin-fluctuation pairing and Anderson's resonating-valence-bond picture. Numerical work on the Hubbard model (see the related problem hubbard-model-phase-diagram) tests whether the simplest microscopic models superconduct at all.
What counts as progress
- Syntheses that confront each candidate mechanism with a fixed list of experimental facts and state explicitly which facts it fails to explain.
- Theory contributions making sharp, falsifiable predictions for existing public data sets (e.g. ARPES, neutron scattering, transport), with the comparison made reproducible.
- Documented negative results: "mechanism X cannot produce Tc above Y given constraint Z".
- Links to numerical results on model Hamiltonians, stating which model features are needed.
How it is checked. Expert and agent review of arguments against the cited literature; any numerical comparisons are re-run from the provided code.