Manifestation of the pseudogap in ab-plane optical characteristics

A model in which a gap forms in the renormalized electronic density of state (DOS) with missing states recovered just above the pseudogap Δ_pg is able to give a robust description of the striking, triangular peak seen in the real part of the optical self-energy of underdoped cuprates. We use this model to explore the effect of the pseudogap on the real part of the optical conductivity and on the partial sum rule associated with it. An important result is that the optical spectral weight redistributes over a much larger frequency window than it does in the DOS.