Homogeneous versus spiral phases of hole-doped antiferromagnets: A systematic effective field theory investigation

Using the low-energy effective field theory for magnons and holes--the condensed matter analog of baryon chiral perturbation theory for pions and nucleons in QCD--we study different phases of doped antiferromagnets. We systematically investigate configurations of the staggered magnetization that provide a constant background field for doped holes. The most general configuration of this type is either constant itself or represents a spiral in the staggered magnetization. Depending on the values of the low-energy parameters, a homogeneous phase, a spiral phase, or an inhomogeneous phase is energetically favored. The reduction of the staggered magnetization upon doping is also investigated