2008/03/31 by Cédric Weber, Andreas Laeuchli, Andreas M. Läuchli +2
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.102.017005
4 pages
arxiv created 2008/04/07 · openalex publication_date 2009/01/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Motivated by the recent report of broken time-reversal symmetry and zero momentum magnetic scattering in underdoped cuprates, we investigate under which circumstances orbital currents circulating inside a unit cell might be stabilized in extended Hubbard models that explicitly include oxygen orbitals. Using Gutzwiller projected variational wave functions that treat on an equal footing all instabilities, we show that orbital currents indeed develop on finite clusters and that they are stabilized in the thermodynamic limit if additional interactions, e.g., strong hybridization with apical oxygens, are included in the model.