van der Waals Interactions Between Thin Metallic Wires and Layers

TL;DR

This paper uses Quantum Monte Carlo methods to accurately study van der Waals interactions between thin metallic wires and layers, revealing significant differences from RPA predictions and providing data for energy functional development.

Contribution

It provides the first accurate QMC binding-energy data for metallic wire and layer pairs, highlighting discrepancies with RPA and offering insights into van der Waals interactions.

Findings

QMC binding energies differ significantly from RPA results.

Disagreement observed in asymptotic behavior at low densities.

Pair-correlation functions for metallic systems are calculated.

Abstract

Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods have been used to obtain accurate binding-energy data for pairs of parallel thin metallic wires and layers modeled by 1D and 2D homogeneous electron gases. We compare our QMC binding energies with results obtained within the random phase approximation, finding significant quantitative differences and disagreement over the asymptotic behavior for bilayers at low densities. We have calculated pair-correlation functions for metallic biwire and bilayer systems. Our QMC data could be used to investigate van der Waals energy functionals.