Signatures of stripe phases in hole-doped La2NiO4

We model nickelate-centered and oxygen-centered stripe phases in doped La2NiO4 materials. We use an inhomogeneous Hartree-Fock and random-phase approximation approach including both electron-electron and electron-lattice (e-l) coupling for a layer of La2NiO4. We find that whether the ground state after commensurate hole doping comprises Ni-centered or O-centered charge-localized stripes depends sensitively on the e-l interaction. With increasing e-l interaction strength, a continuous transition from an O-centered stripe phase to a Ni-centered one is found. Various low- and high-energy signatures of these two kinds of stripe phases are predicted, which can clearly distinguish them. These signatures reflect the strongly correlated spin-charge-lattice features in the vicinity of Ni-centered or O-centered stripe domains. The importance of e-l interaction for recent experiments on stripe phases is discussed. [S0163-1829(98)06925-2].