Droplet state in an interacting two-dimensional electron system

It is well known that the dielectric constant of two-dimensional (2D) electron systems goes negative at low electron densities. A consequence of the negative dielectric constant could be the formation of the droplet state. The droplet state is a two-phase coexistence region of high density liquid and low density “gas.” In this paper, we carry out energetic calculations to study the stability of the droplet ground state. The possible relevance of the droplet state to recently observed 2D metal-insulator transition is also discussed.