Periodic discrete energy for long-range potentials

Abstract

We consider periodic energy problems in Euclidean space with a special emphasis on long-range potentials that cannot be defined through the usual infinite sum. One of our main results builds on more recent developments of Ewald summation to define the periodic energy corresponding to a large class of long-range potentials. Two particularly interesting examples are the logarithmic potential and the Riesz potential when the Riesz parameter is smaller than the dimension of the space. For these examples, we use analytic continuation methods to provide concise formulas for the periodic kernel in terms of the Epstein Hurwitz Zeta function. We apply our energy definition to deduce several properties of the minimal energy including the asymptotic order of growth and the distribution of points in energy minimizing configurations as the number of points becomes large. We conclude with some detailed calculations in the case of one dimension, which shows the utility of this approach.