English

Defect free global minima in Thomson's problem of charges on a sphere

Other Condensed Matter 2009-11-11 v2

Abstract

Given NN unit points charges on the surface of a unit conducting sphere, what configuration of charges minimizes the Coulombic energy i>j=1N1/rij\sum_{i>j=1}^N 1/r_{ij}? Due to an exponential rise in good local minima, finding global minima for this problem, or even approaches to do so has proven extremely difficult. For \hbox{N=10(h2+hk+k2)+2N = 10(h^2+hk+k^2)+ 2} recent theoretical work based on elasticity theory, and subsequent numerical work has shown, that for N>500N \sim >500--1000 adding dislocation defects to a symmetric icosadeltahedral lattice lowers the energy. Here we show that in fact this approach holds for all NN, and we give a complete or near complete catalogue of defect free global minima.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0509501,
  title  = {Defect free global minima in Thomson's problem of charges on a sphere},
  author = {Eric Lewin Altschuler and Antonio Perez-Garrido},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0509501},
  year   = {2009}
}

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