Count rates and structure factors in anomalous soft x-ray scattering from cuprate superconductors

It has recently been shown that x-ray diffraction from the doped holes in cuprates can be enhanced by 3-4 orders of magnitude by exploiting resonance effects in the oxygen K shell. This new type of anomalous scattering is direct way of probing ground state inhomogeneity in the mobile carrier liquid of high temperature superconductors. Here we describe a model which quantifies the relationship between experimental count rates and the structure factor for doped holes in this technique. We describe first efforts to detect inhomogeneity in thin films of La 2 CuO 4+δ and report some peculiar observations. We attempt to offer some explanation.