Bipolaronic charge excitations in t-J two-leg ladders

We present a low-energy effective model for the charge degrees of freedom in two-leg t-J ladders. Starting from SU(2) mean-field theory, we exclude the spin degrees of freedom which have an energy gap. At low temperatures, the mean-field solution is the staggered-flux phase. For gapless charge excitations the effective theory is the Luther-Emery liquid. Our analysis is applicable at low doping and in the ``physical'' range of parameters $t/J\sim 3$ where there is only one massless mode in the charge sector and no massless modes in the spin sector. Within our model we make predictions about correlation exponents and the superconductivity order parameter, and discuss the comparison with the existing numerical results.
ReVTeX, 14 pages, 11 figures, uses epsf