Quantum melting on a lattice and a delocalization transition
E.V. Tsiper,a
F.G. Pikus,b
and A.L. Efrosa
aDepartment of Physics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 bUniversity of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA
We consider 2D gas of spinless fermions with the Coulomb interaction
on a lattice at T=0 and at different values of the hopping amplitude
J. At small J electrons form a periodic structure. At filling factor
\nu=1/6 this structure melts at J as low as 0.02--0.03 in units of the
nearest-neighbor Coulomb energy. We argue that this transition is
connected to the dielectric-metal and dielectric-superconductor
transitions. To demonstrate this point we perform computer modeling
of the systems 6x6 with 6 and 7 electrons and 6x12 with 12 electrons.
By sweeping J we compute simultaneously persistent current and
structural characteristics of the electron distribution.