Nature of spin-charge separation

Abstract

Quasiparticle properties are explored in an effective theory of the $t-J$ model which includes two important components: spin-charge separation and unrenormalizable phase shift. We show that the phase shift effect indeed causes the system to be a non-Fermi liquid as conjectured by Anderson on a general ground. But this phase shift also drastically changes a conventional perception of quasiparticles in a spin-charge separation state: an injected hole will remain {\em stable} due to the confinement of spinon and holon by the phase shift field despite the background is a spinon-holon sea. True {\em deconfinement} only happens in the {\em zero-doping} limit where a bare hole will lose its integrity and decay into holon and spinon elementary excitations. The Fermi surface structure is completely different in these two cases, from a large band-structure-like one to four Fermi points in one-hole case, and we argue that the so-called underdoped regime actually corresponds to a situation in between, where the ``gap-like'' effect is amplified further by a microscopic phase separation at low temperature. Unique properties of the single-electron propagator in both normal and superconducting states are studied by using the equation of motion method. We also comment on some of influential ideas proposed in literature related to the Mott-Hubbard insulator and offer a unified view based on the present consistent theory.