Limitations of spin-fermion models in studying underdoped cuprates

A microscopic basis is provided for the spin-fermion model used to describe the physics of the underdoped cuprates. In this way, a spin-fermion coupling is shown to take care of the local no double occupancy constraint, which is ignored in the weakly coupled regime. This ingredient is proved to be essential to capture the physics of strong correlations, however. We elaborate further on our recent proposal for the strong-coupling version of the spin-fermion model that may prove to be the correct starting point to deal with the strong correlation physics displayed by the underdoped cuprates.