Short-distance symmetry of pair correlations in two-dimensional jellium

Abstract

We consider the two-dimensional one-component plasma (jellium) of mobile pointlike particles with the same charge $e$, interacting pairwisely by the logarithmic Coulomb potential and immersed in a fixed neutralizing background charge density. Particles are in thermal equilibrium at the inverse temperature $\beta$, the only relevant dimensionless parameter is the coupling constant $\Gamma\equiv\beta e^2$. In the bulk fluid regime and for any value of the coupling constant $\Gamma=2\times{\rm integer}$, \v{S}amaj and Percus [J. Stat. Phys. {\bf 80}, 811--824 (1995)] have derived an infinite sequence of sum rules for the coefficients of the short-distance expansion of particle pair correlation function. In the context of the equivalent fractional quantum Hall effect, by using specific methods of quantum geometry Haldane [PRL {\bf 107}, 116801 (2011) and arXiv:1112.0990v2] derived a self-dual relation for the Landau-level guiding-center structure factor. In this paper, we establish the relation between the guiding-center structure factor and the pair correlation function of jellium particles. It is shown that the self-dual formula, which provides an exact relation between the pair correlation function and its Fourier component, comes directly from the short-distance symmetry of the bulk jellium. The short-distant symmetry of pair correlations is extended to the semi-infinite geometry of a rectilinear plain hard wall with a fixed surface charge density, constraining particles to a half-space. The symmetry is derived for the original jellium model as well as its simplified version with no background charge (charged wall surface with ``counter-ions only''). The obtained results are checked at the exactly solvable free-fermion coupling $\Gamma=2$.