Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) has become an important tool for studying elementary excitations in correlated materials. Here, we present a systematic theoretical investigation of the Cu
L-edge RIXS spectra of undoped and doped cuprate two-leg spin-ladders in both the non-spin-conserving (NSC) and spin-conserving (SC) channels. The spectra are rich and host many exotic excitations. In the NSC channel of the undoped case, we identify one-triplon and bound triplet two-triplon excitations in the strong rung coupling limit, as well as confined spinons in the weak rung coupling limit. In the doped case, we observe a quasiparticle excitation formed from a bound charge and spin-
1/2 in the strong rung coupling limit. In the SC channel, we also identify several new features, including bound singlet two-triplon excitations and confined spinons in the undoped ladders in the strong and weak rung coupling limits, respectively. Conversely, in the doped case, the SC channel primarily probes both gapless and gapped charge excitations. Finally, we revisit the available data for the ladder compound
Sr14Cu24O41 in the context of our results.
Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) has proven a powerful tool to investigate dynamic magnetic correlations, yielding complementary insights compared to neutron scattering. A key issue is the interpretation of spectroscopic measurements in terms of quasi-particle excitations. In this paper we study the spin-conserving channel of RIXS spectra for two-leg quantum spin ladders using continuous unitary transformations. We find that multi-triplon continua and bound states are the leading contribution, opening new venues for observing and characterizing multi-triplons in quantum spin systems.
The ground state of a hole-doped t-t'-J ladder with four legs favors a striped charge distribution. Spin excitation from the striped ground state is known to exhibit incommensurate spin excitation near q=(pi,pi) along the leg direction (qx direction). However, an outward dispersion from the incommensurate position toward q=(0,pi) is strong in intensity, inconsistent with inelastic neutron scattering (INS) experiment in hole-doped cuprates. Motivated by this inconsistency, we use the t-t'-J model with m x n=96 lattice sites by changing lattice geometry from four-leg (24x4) to rectangle (12x8) shape and investigate the dynamical spin structure factor by using the dynamical density matrix renormalization group. We find that the outward dispersion has weak spectral weights in the 12x8 lattice, accompanied with the decrease of excitation energy close to q=(pi,pi), being consistent with the INS data. In the 12x8 lattice, weakening of incommensurate spin correlation is realized even in the presence of the striped charge distribution. For further investigation of geometry related spin dynamics, we focus on direction dependent spin excitation reported by recent resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) for cuprate superconductors and obtain a consistent result with RIXS by examining an 8x8 t-t'-J square lattice.