| Abstract: | The antiferromagnetic phase of a 2‐D Wigner crystal is investigated, using a localized representation for electrons. In our model, the electrons are located at the lattice sites of a face‐centered square lattice (corresponding to bcc in the 3‐D case). This lattice may be thought of as consisting of two equivalent interpenetrating sublattices. The ground‐state energies of the antiferromagnetic phase of a 2‐D Wigner electron crystal are computed with uniform neutralizing, Gaussian‐type, and Yukawa‐type positive backgrounds in the range of rs = 5 to 130. The role of correlation energy is suitably taken into account. The possibility of the antiferromagnetic phase of the 2‐D Wigner crystal having a square or circle as the region of occupation in momentum space is also analyzed. The low‐density region favorable for the antiferromagnetic phase of Wigner crystallization is found to be at rs = 7.0. Our results agree well with experimental and other theoretical results for the 2‐D Wigner crystal. The structure‐dependent Wannier functions, which give proper localized representation for Wigner electrons, are constructed and employed in the calculation for the first time. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2005 |
