Why standard estimates of electron-phonon coupling in cuprates do not work

The problem of estimating the coupling strength between oxygen-breathing phonons and electrons in cuprates is discussed. Some of these modes are found in experiments to be strongly coupled, in particular at low doping concentrations. Standard tools, like local density approximation, give a too small coupling. Many-body techniques compare instead much better with experiments. This suggests that electronic correlation effects play a crucial role in the estimate of the electron-phonon coupling from first principles. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.