Mobility of the Doped Holes and the Antiferromagnetic Correlations in Underdoped High-T_c Cuprates

The emergence and the evolution of the metallic charge transport in the La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4} system from lightly- to optimally-doped samples (x = 0.01 - 0.17) are studied. We demonstrate that in high-quality single crystals the in-plane resistivity shows a metallic behavior for ALL values of x at moderate temperatures and that the hole mobility at 300 K changes only by a factor of 3 from x = 0.01 to 0.17, where its x-dependence is found to be intriguingly similar to that of the inverse antiferromagnetic correlation length. We discuss an incoherent-metal picture and a charged-stripe scenario as candidates to account for these peculiar features.