In this article we study a conjecture of Geiss-Leclerc-Schröer, which is an analogue of a classical conjecture of Lusztig in the Weyl group case. It concerns the relation between canonical basis and semi-canonical basis through the characteristic cycles. We formulate an approach to this conjecture and prove it for type quiver. In the general type A case, we reduce the conjecture to show that certain nearby cycles have vanishing Euler characteristic.

We present a quantum field theoretic description on the t−J model on a square lattice with dilute holes (i.e. near half-filling), based on the compact mutual Chern-Simons gauge theory. We show that, due to the presence of non-perturbative monopole plasma configuration from the antiferromagnetic background, holons (carrying electric charge) are linearly confined and strongly localized even without extrinsic disorder taken into account. Accordingly, the translation symmetry is spontaneously broken at ground state. Such an exotic localization is distinct from Anderson localization and essentially rooted in intrinsic Mott physics of the t−J model. Finally, a finite-temperature phase diagram is proposed. The metal-insulator transition observed in in-plane resistivity measurement is identified to a confinement-deconfinement transition from the perspective of gauge theory. The transition is characterized by the order parameter "Polyakov-line".

The antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin chain of odd spin S is in the Haldane phase with several defining physical properties, such as thermodynamical ground-state degeneracy, symmetry-protected edge states, and nonzero string order parameter. If nonzero hole concentration δ and hole hopping energy t are considered, the spin chain is replaced by a spin-S t-J chain. The motivation of this paper is to generalize the discussions of the Haldane phase to the doped spin chain. The first result of this paper is that, for the model considered here, the \mathbb{Z}_2 sign structure in the usual Ising basis can be totally removed by two consecutive unitary transformations consisting of a spatially local one and a nonlocal one. Direct from the sign structure, the second result of this paper is that the Marshall theorem and the Lieb-Mattis theorem for pure spin systems are generalized to the t-J chain for arbitrary S and δ. A corollary of the theorem provides us with the ground-state degeneracy in the thermodynamic limit. The third result of this paper is about the phase diagram. We show that the defining properties of the Haldane phase survive in the small t/J limit. The large t/J phase supports a gapped spin sector with similar properties (ground-state degeneracy, edge state, and string order parameter) of the Haldane chain, although the charge sector is gapless.

Based on three general guiding principles, i.e., no double occupancy constraint, accurate description of antiferromagnetism at half-filling, and the precise sign structure of the t-J model, a new ground state wave function has been constructed recently [Weng, New J. Phys. 13, 103039 (2011)]. In this paper, we specifically study such kind of variational ground state for the one-hole-doped anisotropic two-leg t-J ladder using variational Monte Carlo (VMC) method. The results are then systematically compared with those recently obtained by density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulation. An excellent agreement is found between the VMC and DMRG results, including a "quantum critical point" at the anisotropy parameter α = α_c ≈ 0.7 (with the parameters t/J=3), and the emergence of charge modulation and momentum (Fermi point) reconstruction at α > α_c due to the quantum interference of the sign structure. In particular, the wave function indicates that a Landau's quasiparticle description remains valid at α < α_c but fails at α > α_c due to the breakdown of the one-to-one correspondence of momentum and translational symmetry of the hole. The explicit form of the wave function provides a direct understanding on how the many-body strong correlation effect takes place non-perturbatively in a doped Mott insulator, which sheds interesting light on the two-dimensional case where the same type of wave function was proposed to describe the cuprate superconductor.

Injecting a single hole into a one-dimensional Heisenberg spin chain is probably the simplest case of doping a Mott insulator. The motion of such a single hole will generally induce a many-body phase shift, which can be identified by an exact sign structure of the model known as the phase string. We show that the sign structure is nontrivial even in this simplest problem, which is responsible for the essential properties of Mott physics. We find that the characteristic momentum structure, the Luttinger liquid behavior, and the quantum phase interference of the hole under a periodic boundary condition, can all be attributed to it. We use the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) numerical simulation to make a comparative study of the t-J chain and a model in which the sign structure is switched off. We further show that the key DMRG results can be reproduced by a variational wave function with incorporating the correct sign structure. Physical implications of the sign structure for doped Mott insulators in general are also discussed.