  While magnetic fields generally compete with superconductivity, a type II
superconductor can persist to very high fields by confining the field in
topological defects, namely vortices. We propose that a similar physics
underlies the pseudogap phase in cuprates, where the relevant topological
defects are the antiphase domain walls of an underlying antiferromagnetic (AFM)
order. A key consequence of this scenario is that the termination of the
pseudogap phase should be quantitatively described by the underlying AFM model.
We demonstrate that this picture can explain a number of key experimentally
observed signatures of the pseudogap phase and how it collapses in the
cuprates.
