Self-localization of holes in a lightly doped Mott insulator

Abstract

We show that lightly doped holes will be self-trapped in an antiferromagnetic spin background at low-temperatures, resulting in a spontaneous translational symmetry breaking. The underlying Mott physics is responsible for such novel self-localization of charge carriers. Interesting transport and dielectric properties are found as the consequences, including large doping-dependent thermopower and dielectric constant, low-temperature variable-range-hopping resistivity, as well as high-temperature strange-metal-like resistivity, which are consistent with experimental measurements in the high-T${}_c$ cuprates. Disorder and impurities only play a minor and assistant role here.

arXiv comment13 pages, 4 figures; additional experimental data are included in Fig. 3 and some comments are added in the text

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Doped Mott insulators are insulators: hole localization in the cuprates
• Phase String Theory for Doped Antiferromagnets
• Giant Anisotropy of Magnetoresistance and "Spin Valve" effect in Antiferromagnetic $N{d}_{2-x}C{e}_{x}Cu{O}_4$
• Spin-charge gauge approach to metal-insulator crossover and transport properties in High-T${}_c$ cuprates
• Thermal Hall Effect and Neutral Spinons in a Doped Mott Insulator
• Monopoles, confinement and charge localization in the t-J model with dilute holes