Evidence of new phase of matter competing with superconductivity

So, the 3 phases of matter are Solid, Liquid, and Gas. Oh, and Plasma. And if you get it really cold, Bose-Einstein Condensate. And then there’s Pseudogap.

It turns out that pseudogap is one thing that stops things from being superconductive at high temperatures.

In a study they found that

In this latest study, Hashimoto was able to find out exactly what was happening at the moment the material transitioned into a superconducting state. He did this by measuring not only the energies and momenta of the electrons, but the number of electrons coming out of the material with particular energies over a wide range of temperatures, and after the electronic properties of the material had been altered in various ways.

 

He discovered clear, strong evidence that at this crucial transition temperature, the pseudogap and superconductivity are competing for electrons. Theoretical calculations by members of the team were able to reproduce this complex relationship.