THEORY OF DICHROISM IN HIGH-TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTORS

We consider the circumstances under which non-s-wave superconductivity could give rise to optical dichroism. Depending on the type of state, circular or linear dichroism and birefringence can occur, and we show how the experiments can be used to investigate the microscopic pair wave function. We also show that we can reconcile the seemingly contradicting experimental results by assuming spin-orbit coupling and the mixing of spin singlet and triplet.