Charge modulation as fingerprints of phase-string triggered interference

Abstract

Charge order appears to be an ubiquitous phenomenon in doped Mott insulators, which is currently under intense experimental and theoretical investigations particularly in the high $T_c$ cuprates. This phenomenon is conventionally understood in terms of Hartree-Fock type mean field theory. Here we demonstrate a mechanism for charge modulation which is rooted in the many-particle quantum physics arising in the strong coupling limit. Specifically, we consider the problem of a single hole in a bipartite $t-J$ ladder. As a remnant of the fermion signs, the hopping hole picks up subtle phases pending the fluctuating spins, the so-called phase string effect. We demonstrate the presence of charge modulations in the density matrix renormalization group solutions which disappear when the phase strings are switched off. This form of charge modulation can be understood analytically in a path-integral language, showing that the phase strings give rise to constructive interferences leading to self-localization. When the latter occurs, left- and right-moving propagating modes emerge inside the localization volume and their interference is responsible for the real space charge modulation.

14 pages, 10 figures. Comments on a followup paper by S. R. White, D. J. Scalapino, and S. A. Kivelson (arXiv:1502.04403) added

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Cited by in corpus (16)

• Meson formation in mixed-dimensional t-J models
• One hole in the two-leg t-J ladder and adiabatic continuity to the non-interacting limit
• Critical role of the sign structure in the doped Mott insulator: Superconductivity vs. Fermi liquid
• Intrinsic translational symmetry breaking in a doped Mott insulator
• Two-hole ground state wavefunction: Non-BCS pairing in a $t$-$J$ two-leg ladder system
• Breakdown of the Bloch-wave behavior for a single hole in a gapped antiferromagnet
• The spectral function of Mott-insulating Hubbard ladders: From fractionalized excitations to coherent quasi-particles
• Localization in a $t$-$J$ type ladder with translational symmetry
• From "Weak" to "Strong" Hole Confinement in a Mott Insulator
• On the possibility of many-body localization in a doped Mott insulator
• Nature of a single doped hole in two-leg Hubbard and $t$-$J$ ladders
• Spin and charge modulations in a single hole doped Hubbard ladder -- verification with optical lattice experiments
• Fractional charge and emergent mass hierarchy in diagonal two-leg t-J cylinders
• Dual Spectroscopy of Quantum Simulated Fermi-Hubbard Systems
• Continuous transition from a Landau quasiparticle to a neutral spinon
• Effect of phase string on single-hole dynamics in the two-leg Hubbard ladder