  We suggest that the high temperature superconductivity in cuprate compounds
may emerge due to interaction between copper-oxygen layers mediated by in-plane
plasmons. The strength of the interaction is determined by the c-axis geometry
and by the ab-plane optical properties. Without making reference to any
particular in-plane mechanism of superconductivity, we show that the interlayer
interaction favors spontaneous appearance of the superconductivity in the
layers. At a qualitative level the model describes correctly the dependence of
the transition temperature on the interlayer distance, and on the number of
adjacent layers in multilayered homologous compounds. Moreover, the model has a
potential to explain (i) a mismatch between the optimal doping levels for
critical temperature and superconducting density and (ii) a universal scaling
relation between the dc-conductivity, the superfluid density, and the
superconducting transition temperature.
