Patterns of Striped order in the Classical Lattice Coulomb Gas

Abstract

We obtain via Monte Carlo simulations the low temperature charge configurations in the lattice Coulomb gas on square lattices for charge filling ratio $f$ in the range $1/3 < f < 1/2 $. We find a simple regularity in the low temperature charge configurations which consist of a suitable periodic combination of a few basic striped patterns characterized by the existence of partially filled diagonal channels. In general there exist two separate transitions where the lower temperature transition ($T_p$) corresponds to the freezing of charges within the partially filled channels. $T_p$ is found to be sensitively dependent on $f$ through the charge number density $\nu = p_{1}/q_{1}$ within the channels.