Surface Forces and the Jellium Model

Abstract

Analytic results are derived for the surface properties of jellium. The surface potential relative to its bulk value is determined exactly in terms of the bulk properties of the uniform electron gas. This result is independent of any assumption concerning the electron energy density functional in an inhomogeneous system and depends only on the energy density in the homogeneous solid. We discuss the basic inapplicability of dispersiontype calculations of the surface energy.