We review some recent results obtained for the dynamics of a single hole and for the ground states at finite hole doping in t-J model. Next, we address the role of orbital degeneracy in doped Mott-Hubbard insulators and show examples of effective strong coupling models which include the orbital degrees of freedom. These new-t-J models have interesting phase diagrams, with the new magnetic phases stabilized by a competition between magnetic energy and excitonic excitations. It is argued that the doped holes always bind to the excitons and that the new phases identified on the mean-field level give rise to local distortions of the lattice. We conclude that realistic t-J models derived from the electronic structure of particular compounds may be successfully applied for understanding both the observed magnetic ground states, and the results of photoemission experiments, as we have demonstrated recently for NiO.
Hole doping in t-J modelStrongly correlated fermions occur in nature in heavy-fermion systems, high temperature superconductors (HTS), doped Mott-Hubbard insulators, in 3 He, and in neutron stars. Generally speaking, these systems involve orbitally degenerate states, as 3d or 4f (5f) states. Yet, in the most common approach to describe the strongly correlated electrons the orbital degrees of freedom are ignored and the problem is reduced to that of spin degeneracy alone. While the nondegenerate Hubbard model, describing the electron correlations in the nondegenerate s band has been used with some success to describe the physical properties of 3 He [1], the attempts to classify various magnetic, charge order, and superconducting instabilities observed in solid state physics in terms of electrons interacting within (145)