Abstract
Recent scanning tunneling microscopy measurements on cuprate
superconductors have revealed remarkable spatial inhomogeneities in
the single-particle energy gap. Using cellular dynamical mean-field
theory, we study the zero temperature superconducting properties of
a single-band Hubbard model with a spatial modulation of the
electron density. We find that the inhomogeneity in the electronic
structure results in a substantial spatial variation of the
superconducting order parameter and single-particle energy gap,
reminiscent of the experimental results. In particular, we find that
the order parameter and gap amplitudes in the hole-rich regions are
significantly enhanced over the corresponding quantities in a
uniform system, if the hole-rich regions are embedded in regions
with smaller hole density.
