Comparison of strontium-induced and oxygen-induced holes in La2CuO4

Structure of the spin-glass state of La2-xSrxCuO4: the spiral theory

Starting from the t-J model, we derive the effective field theory describing the spin dynamics in insulating La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4), x approximately < 0.055, at low temperature. The theory results in a disordered spiral ground state, in which the staggered component of the copper spins is confined in a plane determined by the spin anisotropies. The static spin structure factor obtained in our calculations is in perfect agreement with neutron scattering data over the whole range of doping in both, the Néel and the spin-glass phase. We show that topological defects (spin vortex-antivortex pairs) are an intrinsic property of the disordered spiral ground state.

Self-localization of composite spin-lattice polarons

Self-localization of holes in the Holstein t-J model is studied in the adiabatic limit using exact diagonalization and the retraceable path approximation. It is shown that the critical electron-phonon coupling lambda c decreases with increasing J and that this behavior is determined mainly by the incoherent rather than by the coherent motion of the hole. The obtained spin correlation functions in the localized region can be understood within a percolation picture where antiferromagnetic order can persist up to a substantial hole doping. These results restrict the possibility of self-localization of holes in lightly doped cuprates.

Doped Mott insulators are insulators: hole localization in the cuprates

We demonstrate that a Mott insulator lightly doped with holes is still an insulator at low temperature even without disorder. Hole localization obtains because the chemical potential lies in a pseudogap which has a vanishing density of states at zero temperature. The energy scale for the pseudogap is set by the nearest-neighbor singlet-triplet splitting. As this energy scale vanishes if transitions, virtual or otherwise, to the upper Hubbard band are not permitted, the fundamental length scale in the pseudogap regime is the average distance between doubly occupied sites. Consequently, the pseudogap is tied to the noncommutativity of the two limits U-->infinity (U the on-site Coulomb repulsion) and L -->infinity (the system size).

Oxygen Interstitials in Superconducting La2CuO4: Their Valence State and Role

The nature of the much debated valence state of an interstitial oxygen atom in oxygen-doped La2CuO4 is the subject of this paper. In model cluster calculations, we studied the position, charge, and spin state of the interstitial oxygen atoms in this superconductor. The models considered allow the interstitial oxygen to move off a symmetrical position, to have varying spin and charge, and to be surrounded by various magnetic environments. UB3LYP calculations show that a model having an interstitial oxygen atom with a total spin of 1 is lowest in energy; the interstitial oxygen atoms here act as stable radicals with a net charge of -1. These results agree with experimental evidence for the paramagnetic behavior for interstitial atoms. The energy associated with a spin flip at a Cu site in our models is lower if interstitial oxygen has a local electron spin density, compared to the case when it does not. We provide a possible explanation for the increase of the doping concentrations of interstitial oxygen with a decrease of the Néel temperature of this system. The relative stability of the models we consider depends on their spin states, accompanied by structural changes; this explains indirectly the experimental change of the slope (from 2 to 1.3) of the linear relationship between the hole concentration and the oxygen content. Our results support a stripe phase in high temperature superconductivity; in our calculations, hole doping to the copper oxide layer comes only through the formation of an oxygen interstitial pair, not from any change of the local structural environment and magnetic field around the single interstitial.

Theory of incommensurate magnetic correlations across the insulator-superconductor transition of underdoped La2-xSrxCuO4

The main feature in the elastic neutron scattering of La2-xSrxCuO4 is the existence of incommensurate peaks with positions that jump from 45 degrees to 0 degrees at 5% doping. We show that the spiral state of the t-t(')-t('')-J model with realistic parameters describes these data perfectly. We explain why in the insulator the peak is at 45 degrees while it switches to 0 degrees precisely at the insulator-metal transition. The calculated positions of the peaks are in agreement with the data in both phases.