Charge Fluctuations in the Two-Dimensional One-Component Plasma

We study, via computer simulations, the fluctuations in the net electric charge in a two-dimensional, one component plasma (OCP) with uniform background charge density –e in a region inside a much larger overall neutral system. Setting e=1, this is the same as the fluctuations in N , the number of mobile particles of charge e. As expected, the distribution of N has, for large , a Gaussian form with a variance which grows only as ^||, where || is the length of the perimeter of . The properties of this system depend only on the coupling parameter =kT, which is the same as the reciprocal temperature in our units. Our simulations show that when the coupling parameter increases, ^() decreases to an asymptotic value ^()^(2)/2 which is equal (or very close) to that obtained for the corresponding variance of particles on a rigid triangular lattice. Thus, for large , the characteristic length _L=2^/ associated with charge fluctuations behaves very differently from that of the Debye length, _D1/ , which it approaches as 0. The pair correlation function of the OCP is also studied.