What is the true charge transfer gap in parent insulating cuprates?

A large body of experimental data point towards a charge transfer instability of parent insulating cuprates to be their unique property. We argue that the true charge transfer gap in these compounds is as small as 0.4-0.5\,eV rather than 1.5-2.0\,eV as usually derived from the optical gap measurements. In fact we deal with a competition of the conventional (3d$^9$) ground state and a charge transfer (CT) state with formation of electron-hole dimers which evolves under doping to an unconventional bosonic system. Our conjecture does provide an unified standpoint on the main experimental findings for parent cuprates including linear and nonlinear optical, Raman, photoemission, photoabsorption, and transport properties anyhow related with the CT excitations. In addition we suggest a scenario for the evolution of the CuO$_2$ planes in the CT unstable cuprates under a nonisovalent doping.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR

Field induced antiferromagnetism and 17^{17}O Knight shift anomaly in La2_2CuO4_4

We address the effect of the field induced antiferromagnetism in paramagnetic state of the cuprate weak ferromagnet La$_2$CuO$_4$. The planar oxygen $^{17}$O Knight shift is shown to be an effective tool to inspect the effects of Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya coupling in cuprates in an external magnetic field. Field induced antiferromagnetism and anisotropic antiferromagnetic contribution to $^{17}$K explain the anomalies observed in $^{17}$O NMR in La$_2$CuO$_4$. The experimental observation of antiferromagnetic contribution to the $^{17}$O Knight shift provides probably the only way to find out the problem of the sense of Dzyaloshinsky vector in cuprates.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, submitted to PR

Dipole and Quadrupole Skyrmions in S=1 (Pseudo)Spin Systems

In terms of spin coherent states we have investigated topological defects in 2D S=1 (pseudo)spin quantum system with the bilinear and biquadratic isotropic exchange in the continuum limit. The proper Hamiltonian of the model can be written as bilinear in the generators of SU(3) group (Gell-Mann matrices). The knowledge of such group structure allows us to obtain some new exact analytical results. Analysing the proper classical model we arrive at different skyrmionic solutions with finite energy and the spatial distribution of spin-dipole and/or spin-quadrupole moments termed as dipole, quadrupole, and dipole-quadrupole skyrmions, respectively. Among the latter we would like note the in-plane vortices with the in-plane distribution of spin moment, varying spin length, and the non-trivial distribution of spin-quadrupole moments.Comment: 20 pages, no figure

Pseudospin S=1 formalism and skyrmion-like excitations in the three body constrained extended Bose-Hubbard model

We have focused in the paper on the most prominent and intensively studied S=1 pseudospin formalism for extended bosonic Hubbard model (EHBM) with truncation of the on-site Hilbert space to the three lowest occupation states n = 0, 1, 2. The EHBM Hamiltonian is a paradigmatic model for the highly topical field of ultracold gases in optical lattices. Generalized non-Heisenberg effective pseudospin Hamiltonian does provide a deep link with boson system and physically clear description of "the myriad of phases" from uniform Mott insulating phases and density waves to two types of superfluids and supersolids. We argue that the 2D pseudospin system is prone to a topological phase separation and focus on several types of unconventional skyrmion-like topological structures in 2D boson systems, which have not been analysed till now. The structures are characterized by a complicated interplay of insulating and the two superfluid phases with a single boson and two-boson condensation, respectively.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1301.2025, arXiv:0804.1171 by other author

Non collinear magnetism and single ion anisotropy in multiferroic perovskites

The link between the crystal distortions of the perovskite structure and the magnetic exchange interaction, the single-ion anisotropy (SIA) and the Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya (DM) interaction are investigated by means of density-functional calculations. Using BiFeO$_3$ and LaFeO$_3$ as model systems, we quantify the relationship between the oxygen octahedra rotations, the ferroelectricity and the weak ferromagnetism (wFM). We recover the fact that the wFM is due to the DM interaction induced by the oxygen octahedra rotations. We find a simple relationship between the wFM, the oxygen rotation amplitude and the ratio between the DM vector and the exchange parameter such as the wFM increases with the oxygen octahedra rotation when the SIA does not compete with the DM forces induced on the spins. Unexpectedly, we also find that, in spite of the $d^5$ electronic configuration of Fe$^{3+}$, the SIA is very large in some structures and is surprisingly strongly sensitive to the chemistry of the $A$-site cation of the $A$BO$_3$ perovskite. In the ground $R3c$ state phase we show that the SIA shape induced by the ferroelectricity and the oxygen octahedra rotations are in competition such as it is possible to tune the wFM "on" and "off" through the relative size of the two types of distortion