Melting Curve of Wigner Electron Crystal

Abstract

The shape of the melting line of the Wigner crystal is discussed in the temperature-density plane. It is argued that near the critical density ρ∗ for the Wigner transition at T = 0 the melting curve has the form

For extreme low densities, on the other hand, the melting curve has as its asymptote the classical plasma melting line

It seems that there should be a single maximum in the melting curve. The classical plasma line should provide an upper bound for the melting temperature, but is a poor bound away from the low density limit.