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Abstract The calculation of the electrostatic potential and/or electrostatic field due to a continuous distribution of charge is a well-covered topic in all calculus-based undergraduate physics courses. The most common approach is to consider bodies with uniform charge distribution and obtain the quantity of interest by integrating over the contributions from all the differential charges. The examples of a uniformly charged disk and ring are prominent in many physics textbooks since they illustrate well this technique at least for special points or directions of symmetry where the calculations are relatively simple. Surprisingly, the case of a uniformly charged annulus, namely, an annular disk, is largely absent from the literature. One might speculate that a uniformly charged annulus is not extremely interesting since after all, it is a uniformly charged disk with a central circular hole. However, we show in this work that the electrostatic potential created by a uniformly charged annulus has features that are much more interesting than one might have expected. A uniformly charged annulus interpolates between a uniformly charged disk and ring. However, the results of this work suggest that a uniformly charged annulus has such electrostatic features that may be essentially viewed as ring-like. The ring-like characteristics of the electrostatic potential of a uniformly charged annulus are evident as soon as a hole is present no matter how small the hole might be. The solution of this problem allows us to draw attention to the pedagogical aspects of this overlooked, but very interesting case study in electrostatics. In our opinion, the problem of a uniformly charged annulus and its electrostatic properties deserves to be treated at more depth in all calculus-based undergraduate physics courses covering electricity and magnetism. 

Abstract It is common in mesoscopic systems to find instances where several charges interact among themselves. These particles are usually confined by an external potential that shapes the symmetry of the equilibrium charge configuration. In the case of classical charges moving on a plane and repelling each other via the Coulomb potential, they possess a ground state à la Thomson or Wigner crystal. As the number of particles N increases, the number of local minima grows exponentially and direct or heuristic optimization methods become prohibitively costly. Therefore the only feasible approximation to the problem is to treat the system in the continuum limit. Since the underlying framework is provided by potential theory, we shall by‐pass the corresponding mathematical formalism and list the most common cases found in the literature. Then we prove a (albeit known) mathematical correspondence that will enable us to re‐discover analytical results in electrostatics. In doing so, we shall provide different methods for finding the equilibrium surface density of charges, analytical and numerical. Additionally, new systems of confined charges in three‐dimensional surfaces will be under scrutiny. Finally, we shall highlight exact results regarding a modified power‐law Coulomb potential in thed‐dimensional ball, thus generalizing the existing literature. 

Abstract We present a theory of spontaneous Fermi surface deformations for half-filled Landau levels (filling factors of the form$$\nu =2 \, n+1/2$$ $\nu =2n+1/2$). We assume the half-filled level to be in a compressible, Fermi liquid state with a circular Fermi surface. The Landau level projection is incorporated via a modified effective electron-electron interaction and the resulting band structure is described within the Hartree-Fock approximation. We regulate the infrared divergences in the theory and probe the intrinsic tendency of the Fermi surface to deform through Pomeranchuk instabilities. We find that the corresponding susceptibility never diverges, though the system is asymptotically unstable in the$$n \rightarrow \infty $$ $n\to \infty$limit. 

Abstract We consider the stability of the circular Fermi surface of a two-dimensional electron gas system against an elliptical deformation induced by an anisotropic Coulomb interaction potential. We use the jellium approximation for the neutralizing background and treat the electrons as fully spin-polarized (spinless) particles with a constant isotropic (effective) mass. The anisotropic Coulomb interaction potential considered in this work is inspired from studies of two-dimensional electron gas systems in the quantum Hall regime. We use a Hartree–Fock procedure to obtain analytical results for two special Fermi liquid quantum electronic phases. The first one corresponds to a system with circular Fermi surface while the second one corresponds to a liquid anisotropic phase with a specific elliptical deformation of the Fermi surface that gives rise to the lowest possible potential energy of the system. The results obtained suggest that, for the most general situations, neither of these two Fermi liquid phases represent the lowest energy state of the system within the framework of the family of states considered in this work. The lowest energy phase is one with an optimal elliptical deformation whose specific value is determined by a complex interplay of many factors including the density of the system. 

We study systems of two and three electrons confined to circular rings. The electrons are considered spinless, and we assume that one electron occupies a single ring. We use the framework of such a model to calculate the linear entropy and, thus, the spatial entanglement between the confined electrons. The geometry of the problem for the case of two electrons incorporates situations in which the planes of the two rings form an arbitrary angle with each other. The resulting Schrödinger’s equation is solved numerically with very high accuracy by means of the exact diagonalization method. We compute the ground state energy and entanglement for all configurations under consideration. We also study the case of three electrons confined to identical, parallel and concentric rings which are located in three different equidistant planes. The vertically separated system of rings is allowed to gradually merge into a single ring geometry, which would represent the equivalent system of a ring with three electrons. It is observed that the system of three electrons gives rise to a richer structure, as the three rings merge into a single one. 

Systems composed of several multi-layer compounds have been extremely useful in tailoring different quantum physical properties of nanomaterials. This is very much true when it comes to semiconductor materials and, in particular, to heterostructures and heterojunctions. The formalism of a position-dependent effective mass has proved to be a very efficient tool in those cases where quantum wells emerge either in one or two dimensions. In this work, we use a variety of mathematical theorems, as well as numerical computations, to study different scenarios pertaining to choices of a specific piecewise constant effective mass for a particle that causes its energy eigenvalues to reach an extremum. These results are relevant when it comes to practical technological applications such as modifying the optical energy gap between the first excited state and the ground state energy of the system. At the end of our contribution, we also question the physical validity of some approximations for systems with particles that possess a position-dependent mass especially for those cases in which the mass distribution is divergent. 

We study a two-dimensional system of interacting electrons confined in equidistant planar circular rings. The electrons are considered spinless and each of them is localized in one ring. While confined to such ring orbits, each electron interacts with the remaining ones by means of a standard Coulomb interaction potential. The classical version of this two-dimensional quantum model can be viewed as representing a system of electrons orbiting planar equidistant concentric rings where the kinetic energy may be discarded when one is searching for the lowest possible energy. Within this framework, the lowest possible energy of the system is the one that minimizes the total Coulomb interaction energy. This is the equilibrium energy that is numerically determined with high accuracy by using the simulated annealing method. This process allows us to obtain both the equilibrium energy and position configuration for different system sizes. The adopted semi-classical approach allows us to provide reliable approximations for the quantum ground state energy of the corresponding quantum system. The model considered in this work represents an interesting problem for studies of low-dimensional systems, with echoes that resonate with developments in nanoscience and nanomaterials. 

The problem of the two-dimensional motion of a charged particle with constant mass in the presence of a uniform constant perpendicular magnetic field features in several undergraduate and graduate quantum physics textbooks. This problem is very important to studies of two-dimensional materials that manifest quantum Hall behavior, as evidenced by several major discoveries over the last few years. Many real experimental samples are more complicated due to the anisotropic mass of the electrons. In this work, we provide the exact solution to this problem by means of a clever scaling of coordinates. Calculations are done for a symmetric gauge of the magnetic field. This study allows a broad audience of students and teachers to understand the mathematical techniques that lead to the solution of this quantum problem.