Quasiparticle picture of high-temperature superconductors in the frame of a Fermi liquid with the fermion condensate

A model of a Fermi liquid with the fermion condensate (FC) is applied to the consideration of quasiparticle excitations in high-temperature superconductors, in their superconducting and normal states. Within our model the appearance of the fermion condensate presents a quantum phase transition that separates the regions of normal and strongly correlated electron liquids. Beyond the phase transition point the quasiparticle system is divided into two subsystems, one containing normal quasiparticles and the other—fermion condensate localized at the Fermi surface and characterized by almost dispersionless single-particle excitations. In the superconducting state the quasiparticle dispersion in systems with FC can be presented by two straight lines, characterized by effective masses $M_{\mathrm{FC}}^{*}$ and $M_L^{*},$ respectively, and intersecting near the binding energy, which is of the order of the superconducting gap. This same quasiparticle picture persists in the normal state, thus manifesting itself over a wide range of temperatures as new energy scales. Arguments are presented that fermion systems with FC have features of a “quantum protectorate” [R. B. Laughlin and D. Pines, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 97, 28 (2000); P. W. Anderson, cond-mat/0007185 (unpublished); cond-mat/0007287 (unpublished)].