The spin bipolaron in the t-J model, i.e., two holes interacting with an antiferromagnetic spin background, is treated by an extension of the self-consistent Born approximation (SCBA), which has proved to be very accurate in the single-hole (spin polaron) problem. One of the main ingredients of our approach is the exact form of the bipolaron eigenstates in terms of a complete set of two-hole basis vectors. This enables us to eliminate the hole operators and to obtain the eigenvalue problem solely in terms of the boson (magnon) operators. The eigenvalue equation is then solved by a procedure similar to Reiter's construction of the single-polaron wave function in the SCBA. As in the latter case, the eigenvalue problem comprises a hierarchy of infinitely many coupled equations. These are brought into a soluble form by means of the SCBA and an additional decoupling approximation, whereupon the eigenvalue problem reduces to a linear integral equation involving the bipolaron self-energy. The numerical solutions of the integral equation are in quantitative agreement with the results of previous numerical studies of the problem. The d-wave bound state is found to have the lowest energy with a critical value J/t|c approximately=0.4. In contrast to recent claims, we find no indication for a crossover between the d-wave and p-wave bound states.
 

International Journal of Modern Physics B, 14 809-35, 2000.