The statistical description of the electron system on the liquid helium surface

TL;DR

This paper develops a mean field theoretical approach to describe inhomogeneous electron distributions on liquid helium, predicting various spatial structures like periodic modulations and electron dimples.

Contribution

It introduces a simple method to model inhomogeneous Coulomb-like systems and derives a free energy functional for 2D electrons on liquid helium surface.

Findings

Prediction of long-range periodic electron density modulations

Prediction of multi-electron dimples formation

Development of a mean field free energy functional

Abstract

It is known that homogeneous distribution of particles in Coulomb-like systems can be unstable, and spatially inhomogeneous structures can be formed. A simple method for describing such inhomogeneous systems and obtaining spacial distributions of electron density is proposed and applied to the case of two-dimensional electron systems on surface of liquid helium. A free energy functional for the model in mean field approximation is obtained. Creation of various types of structures, such as long-range periodical modulation and multi-electron dimples, is predicted by minimizing this functional.