Nodal quasiparticles and classical phase fluctuations in d-wave superconductors

We show that the nodal quasiparticles have significant effect on the classical phase fluctuations in a quasi-two-dimensional d-wave superconductor. They give rise to singularities in the temperature behavior of some of the coupling constants in the phase-only effective action. One of the consequences is that the classical XY-model is not adequate for the description of the superconducting fluctuations in d-wave superconductors at low temperatures.