Dislocations in the melting of two-dimensional electron crystals

Abstract

We study the defect structure of quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a two-dimensional electron gas in the crystalline phase. A finite density of dislocation pairs exists even before the melting takes place. The dislocation pair density in the solid increases gradually as the electron gas parameter r s is increased and is much higher than that in the related problem of flux-line lattice melting.