On the stability of a weakly charged surface of liquid helium

The traditional approach to the development of instability of a weakly charged helium surface needs correction. It is shown that the well-known electrostatically “equipotential” Frenkel-Tonks scenario should be transformed to a more general sequence of events that would remain reasonable when the 2D charge density tends to zero. Under these conditions, the priorities change and the instability development through nucleation (with the formation of separate multicharged dimples) becomes preferable. The experiment qualitatively confirms the predictions of the theory.