Wigner Solid. I. Dynamics on Rigid and Soft Interfaces

Abstract

A degenerate Fermi gas is not the only possible ground state for a collection of interacting electrons. It was Wigner [224] who pointed out that electrons in a structureless positive background may form a lattice at a low enough density, when the kinetic energy of electrons plays only a secondary role as compared to their potential energy. Remarkably, this prediction was made in 1934 when the ‘simple’ theory of metal electrons disregarding electron—electron interactions had given satisfactory results for most questions. The electron crystal was called the Wigner solid (WS). Until 1971 the Wigner solid was studied theoretically as an intriguing hypothesis, even though there was no experimental system where it could exist. In 1967 it was suggested by Van Horn [225] that the degenerate positive ions of a white dwarf star might form a Wigner lattice.