Modeling the Fermi arc in underdoped cuprates

Angle resolved photoemission data in the pseudogap phase of underdoped cuprates have revealed the presence of a truncated Fermi surface consisting of Fermi arcs. We compare a number of proposed models for the arcs and find that the one that best models the data is a d-wave energy gap with a lifetime broadening whose temperature dependence is suggestive of fluctuating pairs.