High-temperature charge density wave correlations in La 1.875 Ba 0.125 CuO 4 without spin–charge locking

Significance Charge correlations have now been identified in the low-temperature phase of essentially all families of underdoped cuprates, but in two apparently distinct types. The first hosts locked charge and spin stripes of which the material La 1.875 Ba 0.125 CuO 4 (LBCO 1 / 8 ) is a paradigmatic example. In the second type, a charge density wave (CDW) exists without any obviously related spin correlations. Here we report the discovery of high-temperature CDW correlations that exist at temperatures above the CDW transition in the canonical striped cuprate LBCO 1 / 8 . We find that the high-temperature CDW is decoupled from the fluctuating spin density wave, lessening apparent differences in behavior among different materials and setting important constraints for how we understand their electronic states.