Low-frequency current fluctuations in doped ladders

Abstract

Charge current static and dynamical correlations are computed by exact diagonalisation methods on a 2-leg t-t'-J ladder which exhibits a sharp transition between a Luther-Emery (LE) phase of hole pairs and a phase with deconfined holes. In the LE phase, we find short-range low-energy incommensurate current fluctuations which are intrinsically connected to the internal charge dynamics within one hole pair. On the contrary, when holes unbind, the maximum of the current susceptibility moves abruptly to the commensurate wavevector $\pi$ and strongly increases for decreasing doping suggesting an instability towards a staggered flux state at sufficiently small doping.