Structural and thermodynamical studies of 2D coulomb clusters with point defects

Abstract

Similarly charged particles under a harmonic trap form well-defined structures even at finite sizes. In this paper, we present a study of the structural deformations upon introducing a fixed-point defect. The interaction between the defect and the particles is modelled as a Gaussian in order to study the effects of the range of interactions. The energetic and thermodynamical stability of small clusters, as well as the number of local minima of the potential-energy-surfaces are discussed.