Inhomogeneous electronic surfactant phases driven by competing orders

Ilya Vekhter, Z. Nussinov and A. V. Balatsky

Department of Physics and Astronomy, Louisiana State University

Emergence of inhomogeneous glassy states in pure systems due to competing interactions has been a focus of much attention recently. We analyse the properties of an electronic system with competing orders using Ginzburg-Landau theory. We find that, even if the original theory is local, negative amplitude-gradient coupling leads to states of inhomogeneous coexistence of two (or more) order parameters. In that case we expect that proliferation of low lying modes in such incommensurate systems triggers slow dynamics and low critical temperatures. I will discuss some applications of these ideas to strongly correlated electron systems.