DETERMINING THE STRUCTURE OF THE SUPERCONDUCTING GAP IN CU2O3 2-LEG LADDER MATERIALS

Superconductivity has been recently observed in Sr0.4Ca13.6Cu24O41.84 which contains quasi-one-dimensional Cu2O3 two-leg ladders. If, as sug gested by some theories, the superconductivity arises from these two-l eg ladders, it will be important to determine the structure of the sup erconducting gap. In particular, does the gap on a two-leg ladder chan ge sign when one goes from the bonding to antibonding Fermi surface po ints? Here we carry out phenomenological calculations of nuclear relax ation rates and inelastic-neutron-scattering intensity in order to pro vide estimates of the experimental resolution that will be required to determine the structure of the superconducting gap associated with an array of weakly coupled two-leg ladders.