  The thermodynamics of the superconducting transition is studied as a function
of doping using high-resolution expansivity data of YBa2Cu3Ox single crystals
and Monte-Carlo simulations of the anisotropic 3D-XY model. We directly show
that Tc of underdoped YBa2Cu3Ox is strongly suppressed from its mean-field
value (Tc-MF) by phase fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. For
overdoped YBa2Cu3Ox fluctuation effects are greatly reduced and Tc ~ Tc-MF . We
find that Tc-MF exhibits a similar doping dependence as the pseudogap energy,
naturally suggesting that the pseudogap arises from phase-incoherent Cooper
pairing.

Superconductivity