Wigner Crystallization and the Onset of a Charge-Density-Wave Instability in Strongly Coupled, Classical, One-Component Plasma

Abstract

We investigate numerically on the possibility of the soft-mode charge-density-wave (CDW) instability in a strongly coupled plasma, based on the Monte Carlo data for the static structure factor. The result appears to indicate that if an instability of the homogeneous fluid phase should take place at all its critical value of the coupling constant would be much greater than that associated with the first-order transition at the Wigner crystallization. A warning is drawn on the reliability of the “local approximation” in the analysis of the CDW problem.