Second roton feature in the strongly coupled electron liquidShow others and affiliations
2025 (English)In: Journal of Chemical Physics, ISSN 0021-9606, E-ISSN 1089-7690, Vol. 163, no 3, article id 034117Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
We present extensive ab initio path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) results for the dynamic properties of the finite temperature uniform electron gas (UEG) over a broad range of densities, 2 ≤ r<inf>s</inf> ≤ 300. We demonstrate that the direct analysis of the imaginary-time density-density correlation function (ITCF) allows for a rigorous assessment of the density and temperature dependence of the previously reported roton-type feature [Dornheim et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 255001 (2018)] at intermediate wavenumbers. We clearly resolve the emergence of a second roton at the second harmonic of the original feature for r<inf>s</inf> ≳ 100, which we identify as an incipient phonon dispersion. Finally, we use our highly accurate PIMC results for the ITCF as the basis for an analytic continuation to compute the dynamic structure factor, which additionally substantiates the existence of the second roton in the strongly coupled electron liquid. Our investigation further elucidates the complex interplay between quantum delocalization and Coulomb coupling in the UEG. All PIMC results are freely available online and provide valuable benchmarks for other theoretical methodologies and approximations.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
AIP Publishing , 2025. Vol. 163, no 3, article id 034117
National Category
Condensed Matter Physics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-369518DOI: 10.1063/5.0281085PubMedID: 40679100Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105011377587OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-369518DiVA, id: diva2:1997213
Note
QC 20250911
2025-09-112025-09-112025-09-11Bibliographically approved