Hole excitation spectra in cuprate superconductors: A comparative study of single- and multiple-band strong-coupling theories

Abstract
We compare ground-state properties as well as spin and single-particle excitation spectra of a single dopant-induced hole carrier in strong-coupling-limit single-orbital and three-orbital Hubbard model lattices with up to 16 square lattice sites. Our results indicate that there is a close correspondence in their ground-state and low-lying excited-state properties, consistent with the recent proposal by Zhang and Rice (ZR). For the three-orbital model, we also find direct spectroscopic evidence for the singlet-triplet excitation gap associated with the dopant-induced ZR Cu-O spin-hole singlet state.