Counterions at Highly Charged Interfaces: From One Plate to Like-Charge Attraction

Abstract

We present an analytical approach for similarly and highly charged planar interfaces in the presence of counterions. The procedure is physically transparent and based on an exact low temperature expansion around the ground state formed by the two-dimensional Wigner crystal of counterions. The one plate problem is worked out, together with the two plates situation. Unlike previous approaches, the expansion is free of divergences, and is shown to be in excellent agreement with available data of MonteCarlo simulations under strong Coulombic couplings. In the two plates case, the present results shed light on the like-charge attraction regime.