Neutral fermions in effective-gauge-field theories of doped Mott insulators

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Abstract
The origin of neutral fermions in two-dimensional Mott insulators is discussed in the context of solitonic solutions of effective gauge theories which describe the continuum limit. It is argued that in the undoped, exactly half-filled case, the solitons are bosons, but that in the doped case a topological (Hopf) term will be induced, which will make the solitons fermionic. In the latter case, they may be identified with the neutral fermions of the resonating-valence-bond theory, as suggested by Wiegmann and Dzyaloshinskii and co-workers.