Low-energy theory of the t-t′-t-U Hubbard model at half-filling: Interaction strengths in cuprate superconductors and an effective spin-only description of La2CuO4

Spin-only descriptions of the half-filled one-band Hubbard model are relevant for a wide range of Mott insulators. In addition to the usual Heisenberg exchange, many other types of interactions, including ring exchange, appear in the effective Hamiltonian in the intermediate coupling regime. In order to improve on the quantitative description of magnetic excitations in the insulating antiferromagnetic phase of copper-oxide (cuprate) materials, and to be consistent with band-structure calculations and photoemission experiments on these systems, we include second-and third-neighbor hopping parameters, t' and t, into the Hubbard Hamiltonian. A unitary transformation method is used to find systematically the effective Hamiltonian and any operator in the spin-only representation. The results include all closed four-hop electronic pathways in the canonical transformation. The method generates many ring exchange terms that play an important role in the comparison with experiments on La2CuO4. Performing a spin-wave analysis, we calculate the magnon dispersion as a function of U, t, t', and t. The four parameters are estimated by fitting the magnon dispersion to the experimental results of Coldea et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5377 (2001)] for La2CuO4. The ring exchange terms are found essential, in particular to determine the relative sign of t' and t, with the values found in good agreement with independent theoretical and experimental estimates for other members of the cuprate family. The zero-temperature sublattice magnetization is calculated using these parameters and also found to be in good agreement with the experimental value estimated by Lee et al. [Phys. Rev. B 60, 3643 (1999)]. We find a value of the interaction strength U similar or equal to 8t consistent with Mott insulating behavior.