Electron crystallization using localized representation

The character of the ground state of the electron crystal—an electron gas with periodic density and/or spin density is investigated. Calculations for non-magnetic, ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic electron crystals based on the Koster-Kohn variational principle for direct calculation of Wannier functions are presented. The Wannier function is approximated by a symmetrically orthonormalized Gaussian. The orbital exponent of the Gaussian is used as a variational parameter. The effect of the positive background is suitably taken into account. The results of our calculation support Wigner’s prediction of electron crystallization.