A theoretical investigation of boson versions of the t-J and t-J(z) models on the square lattice is carried out. In the t-J(z) model, phase separation between a hole-rich and a hole-free phase occurs, at sufficiently low hole doping, for arbitrarily small values of J(z). The boson t-J model, instead, features a uniform ground state at any doping for J/t< or =1.5. No evidence of a striped ground state is found. Relevance of this study to the corresponding fermion models is discussed. Fermi statistics is found to enhance the tendency toward phase separation; in particular, phase separation is predicted, at low doping, in the fermion t-J(z) model, at all values of J(z).
Based on the U(1) slave-boson functional integral approach to the $t\ensuremath{-}J$ model Hamiltonian, we investigate the phase diagram of phase separation for the hole-doped two-dimensional system of antiferromagnets. We discuss the phase separation (into a hole-rich and a hole-free phase) as a function of
J/t where J is the Heisenberg (antiferromagnetic) coupling constant and t the hopping energy. For the physically interesting region of relatively small Heisenberg coupling,
0<J/t<0.2, we find that the phase separation occurs in a region of hole doping concentration below ${x}_{c}\ensuremath{\sim}0.1$ and that in the same region the critical hole doping concentrations remain robust with nearest-neighbor hole-hole repulsive interactions. On the other hand, in the region of larger
J/t the phase separation boundary is found to be highly sensitive to the variation of the repulsive hole-hole interactions. In agreement with other studies, we find that the phase separation occurs at a critical value of ${J}_{c}\ensuremath{\approx}3.4t$ corresponding to the critical hole concentration
xc=1.We consider a Hubbard-like model of strongly interacting spinless fermions and hardcore bosons on a square lattice, such that nearest neighbor occupation is forbidden. Stripes (lines of holes across the lattice forming antiphase walls between ordered domains) are a favorable way to dope this system below half filling. The problem of a single stripe can be mapped to fermions in one dimension, which allows understanding of its elementary excitations and calculation of the stripe's effective mass for transverse vibrations. Using Lanczos exact diagonalization, we investigate the excitation gap and dispersion of a hole on a stripe, and the interaction of two holes. We also study the interaction of a few stripes, finding that they repel and the interaction energy decays with stripe separation as if they are hardcore particles moving in one (transverse) direction. To determine the stability of an array of stripes against phase separation into a particle-rich phase and a hole-rich liquid, we evaluate the liquid's equation of state, finding that the stripe-array is not stable for bosons but is possibly stable for fermions.
We investigate the ground-state properties of two strongly-correlated systems: the two-dimensional
t−J model that can be used to study the high-temperature superconducting phase in the doped antiferromagnet, and the frustrated N\'eel antiferromagnet described by the
J1−J2 Heisenberg model on the square lattice, which is widely considered as the prototype model for spin frustration. In this thesis, we apply to these two systems state-of-the-art quantum Monte Carlo techniques, including the variational and the Green's function Monte Carlo with the fixed-node approximation. Few Lanczos steps are used to systematically improve the accuracy of the trial wave functions. By introducing a suitable regularization scheme for the variational calculations with few Lanczos steps, stable and controllable simulations can be performed up to very large cluster sizes with very good accuracy. In the two-dimensional
t−J model at
J/t=0.4, we show that the accuracy of the Gutzwiller-projected variational state (containing
dx2−y2 pairing) can be improved much by few Lanczos steps; in addition, the fixed-node Monte Carlo with these systematically improvable trial wave functions gives results that are comparable with the best accurate DMRG ones. Our main outcome is that the ground state is homogeneous and no evidence of stripes is detected around the doping
δ=1/8. Indeed, our best approximation to the ground state does not show any tendency towards charge inhomogeneity. Furthermore, our results show that a uniform state containing superconductivity and antiferromagnetism is stabilized at low hole doping, i.e.,
δ≲0.1. In the
J1−J2 Heisenberg model on the square lattice, we use the projected mean-field state that is built from Abrikosov fermions having a
Z2 gauge structure and four Dirac points in the spinon spectrum. No spin or dimer order is found in the strongly frustrated regime and our calculations imply that a spin liquid phase may faithfully represent the exact ground state around
J2/J1=0.5. The few Lanczos step technique is used to systematically improve the accuracy of the variational states both for the ground state and for few relevant low-energy excitations. This procedure allows us to estimate, in a valuable and systemic way, the spin gaps within thermodynamical limit and to show a solid evidence of an unconventional gapless excitation spectrum in the strongly frustrated regime, i.e.,
J2/J1≃0.5. In particular, we found gapless triplet excitations at momenta
(π,0) and
(0,π), which are compatible with the presence of four Dirac points at momenta
(±2π,±2π) in the spinon spectrum.
In the spinless fermion model on a square lattice with infinite nearest-neighbor repulsion, holes doped into the half-filled ordered state form stripes which, at low doping, are stable against phase separation into an ordered state and a hole-rich metal. Here we consider transport of additional holes along these stripes. The motion of a single hole on a stripe is mapped to a one-dimensional problem, a variational wave function is constructed and the energy spectrum is calculated and compared to energies obtained by exact diagonalization.
Using Gutzwiller-projected wave functions, I estimate the ground-state energy of the $t\text{\ensuremath{-}}J$ model for several variational states relevant for high-temperature cuprate superconductors. The results indicate that both the superconducting state and the staggered-flux normal state (proposed for vortex cores) are unstable at low doping towards antiferromagnetism and towards phase separation. While phase separation in the underdoped superconducting state may be relevant for the stripe formation mechanism, the results for the normal state suggest that similar charge inhomogeneities may also appear in vortex cores up to relatively high doping values.