Circulating-current phase in the three-band model for two-leg CuO ladders

We calculate circulating-current (CC), charge-density-wave, and d-wave-like pairing (d-SC) correlation functions in the three-band Hubbard model for two-leg CuO ladders using the density-matrix renormalization group method and detect a dominant fluctuation in a wide range of parameter values and hole-doping rates. We find that, for model parameters leading to a realistic ground state in the undoped ladder, the CC fluctuations decay faster than the d-SC correlations at least up to a hole doping of 10%. It means that no phase with CC order or dominant CC fluctuations occur at low doping.