Stability of RVB hole stripes in high-temperature superconductors

Indications of density-wave states in underdoped cuprates, coming from recent scanning tunneling microscopy and Hall-resistance measurements, have raised concerns whether stripes could be stabilized in the superconducting phase of cuprate materials, even in the absence of antiferromagnetism. Here, we investigate this issue using state-of-the-art quantum Monte Carlo calculations of a t-J model. In particular we consider the stability of unidirectional hole domains in a modulated superconducting background by taking into account the effect of tetragonal-lattice distortions, next-nearest-neighbor hopping, and long-range Coulomb repulsion.