Spinon confinement: Dynamics of weakly coupled Hubbard chains

Using large-scale determinant quantum Monte Carlo simulations in combination with the stochastic analytical continuation, we study two-particle dynamical correlation functions in the anisotropic square lattice of weakly coupled one-dimensional (1D) Hubbard chains at half filling and in the presence of weak frustration. The evolution of the static spin structure factor upon increasing the interchain coupling is suggestive of the transition from the power-law decay of spin-spin correlations in the 1D limit to long-range antiferromagnetic order in the quasi-1D regime and at T = 0. In the numerically accessible regime of interchain couplings, the charge sector remains gapped. The low-energy momentum dependence of the spin excitations is well described by the linear spin-wave theory with the largest intensity located around the antiferromagnetic wave vector. This magnon mode corresponds to a bound state of two spinons. At higher energies the spinons deconfine and we observe signatures of the two-spinon continuum which progressively fade away as a function of interchain hopping.