Quasiparticle Description of Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy for SrCuO2

Abstract

SrCuO2 has long been considered a near-archetypal realization of a quasi one dimensional (1D) system of interacting electrons with short-range interactions. Within this framework, experimental observations - interpreted through the lens of the 1D Hubbard model-suggest that electron and hole excitations decay into two types of (unphysical) collective bosonic modes: spinons, which carry the spin degree of freedom, and holons, which carry the charge degree of freedom. This model, known as spin-charge separation, is most directly evidenced by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), where a photo-induced hole decays into a continuum of these excitations. Here we present an alternative perspective grounded in first-principles, self-consistent, and parameter-free many-body perturbation theory. In this revised quasiparticle framework, ARPES can be understood as a one-body effect arising from mild disorder in a long-range antiferromagnetic ground state. the emergence of the so-called spinon branch arises naturally from spin disorder, the anomalous line widths are accurately captured, and we provide a compelling explanation for the spectral weight observed at the non-magnetic zone boundary. This reinterpretation provides a unified explanation for key experimental signatures previously attributed to spin-charge separation, including features observed in optical conductivity. Additionally, we show that SrCuO2 exhibits a nontrivial interchain coupling that significantly influences both its one-particle and two-particle spectral functions. By comparing the spectral features of SrCuO2 with those of La2CuO4, we argue that SrCuO2 shares notable similarities with the two-dimensional cuprates - both being rooted in a common CuO4 plaquette-based molecular orbital framework.