The Hubbard model on a two-leg ladder structure has been studied by a combination of series expansions at T=0 and the density-matrix renormalization group. We report results for the ground state energy $E_0$ and spin-gap $Delta_s$ at half-filling, as well as dispersion curves for one and two-hole excitations. For small $U$ both $E_0$ and $Delta_s$ show a dramatic drop near $t/t_{perp}sim 0.5$, which becomes more gradual for larger $U$. This represents a crossover from a band insulator phase to a strongly correlated spin liquid. The lowest-lying two-hole state rapidly becomes strongly bound as $t/t_{perp}$ increases, indicating the possibility that phase separation may occur. The various features are collected in a phase diagram for the model.
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