MECHANISM OF CHARGE-SPIN SEPARATION IN THE T-J MODEL - DYNAMICS OF U(1) GAUGE-THEORY WITH MULTIPLE GAUGE-FIELDS

The mechanism of the charge-spin separation (CSS) in the t-J model, both in the slave-boson and the slave-fermion representations, is studied in detail from the viewpoint of gauge theory. The dynamics of the composite gauge bosons, i.e., of phase degrees of freedom of mean fields defined on links, is carefully analyzed. The Polyakov-Sussskind theory of the confinement-deconfinement (CD) phase transition plays an essential role in this analysis. As we showed generally in our previous paper, the CSS phase corresponds to the deconfinement phase of gauge theory of the mean field. The quasiparticles here are holons, spinons, and gauge bosons. Across the CD transition, another phase, the electron phase, is realized, which corresponds to the confinement phase of gauge theory. The quasiparticles in this phase are conventional electrons, which may be viewed as bound states of holons and spinons. In this paper, we demonstrate that the two-dimensional t-J model exhibits the phenomenon of CSS below a certain critical temperature TCD, the CD transition temperature, and calculate TCD as a function of hole concentration. The most important contribution to the realization of CSS comes from nonrelativistic gapless excitations via screening of confining potential among holons and spinons. Reflecting upon two kinds of mean fields, i.e., in the normal and super channels, the resulting CSS deconfinement phase of the t-J model is further classified into Coulomb and Higgs phases. By applying the Polyakov-Susskind theory, they are described by the spin-ordered phase of the isotropic and of the anisotropic XY spin model, respectively. © 1995 The American Physical Society.