Numerical investigation of spin excitations in a doped spin chain

Abstract

We study the doping evolution of spin excitations in a one-dimensional (1D) Hubbard model and its downfolded spin Hamiltonians, by using exact diagonalization combined with cluster perturbation theory. In all models we observe hardening (softening) of spin excitations upon electron (hole) doping, which are reminiscent of recent experiments on two-dimensional (2D) cuprate materials. We also find that the three-site and even higher-order terms are crucial for the low-energy effective spin models to reproduce the magnetic spectra of doped Hubbard systems at a quantitative level. To interpret the numerical results, we further employ a strong coupling slave-boson mean-field theory. The mean-field theory provides an intuitive understanding of the overall compact support of dynamic spin structure factors, including the shift of zero-energy modes and change of spin excitation bandwidth with doping. Our results can serve as predictive benchmarks for future inelastic x-ray or neutron scattering experiments on doped 1D antiferromagnetic Mott insulators.