  We investigate the nature of doped Mott insulators using exact
diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group methods. Persistent
spin currents are revealed in the ground state, which are concomitant with a
nonzero total momentum or angular momentum associated with the doped hole. The
latter determines a nontrivial ground state degeneracy. By further making
superpositions of the degenerate ground states with zero or unidirectional spin
currents, we show that different patterns of spatial charge and spin
modulations will emerge. Such anomaly persists for the odd numbers of holes,
but the spin current, ground state degeneracy, and charge/spin modulations
completely disappear for even numbers of holes, with the two-hole ground state
exhibiting a d-wave symmetry. An understanding of the spin current due to a
many-body Berry-like phase and its impact on the momentum distribution of the
doped holes will be discussed.
