Density Functional Theory (DFT) of Quantum Freezing | Original Article

ABSTRACT:

This paper deals with the density functional theory (DFT) of quantum freezing. The term ‘quantum freezing’ refers to the freezing solidification of a quantum-mechanical system. Here, we are interested in the theory of freezing of a quantum many-electron system. From a historical perspective, Wigner [1] predicted theoretically long time back in the year 1934 that at T=0K, a system of interacting electrons embedded in an imaginative charge neutralizing positive charge background should crystallize at sufficiently low electron number densities. The argument given was that with decreasing electron density the electron-electron interaction effects grow over the electron kinetics and at a sufficiently low density, the electrons in an attempt to lower their total energy try to avoid each other by freezing into an electrons’ crystal- now known as the Wigner crystal (WC).