  We present concrete conditions designed to assess the applicability of
BCS-BEC crossover theory in the cuprates. This work bears on the essential
point made in a recent paper which claimed to observe absence of a BCS-BEC
crossover in the cuprate superconductors. More precisely, this previous work
showed that the cuprates are far from the BEC limit, a conclusion with which
the high-$T_c$ community is, presumably, in full agreement. Their analysis,
however, was not inconsistent with a scenario in which these superconductors
are somewhere \textit{intermediate} between BCS and BEC. Where precisely the
cuprates sit within this spectrum is shown to be directly reflected in the
superconducting coherence length near $T_c$. This work, which includes detailed
predictions, calls attention to the importance of arriving at a systematic
determination of this parameter throughout the $T_c$ dome for the entire class
of cuprate superconductors.

Superconductivity