Poilblanc, D.Weber, C.Mila, F.Sigrist, M.2019-06-242019-06-242019-06-24200710.1016/j.jmmm.2006.10.094https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/158479We propose that the inhomogeneous patterns seen by STM in some underdoped superconducting cuprates could be related to a bond-order-wave instability of the staggered flux state, one of the most studied “normal” state proposed to compete with the d-wave RVB superconductor. A checkerboard pattern is obtained by a Gutzwiller renormalized mean-field theory of the – model for doping around . It is found that the charge modulation is always an order of magnitude smaller than the bond-order modulations. This is confirmed by an exact optimization of the wavefunction by a variational Monte Carlo scheme. The numerical estimates of the order parameters are, however, found to be strongly reduced w.r.t their mean-field values.text::journal::journal article::research article