Numerical Study of the Structure of Metastable Configurations for the Thomson Problem

Resumo

A numerical method is proposed for solving the Thomson problem – finding stable positions for a system of N point charges distributed on a sphere that minimize the potential energy of the system. The behavior of this system is essentially nonlinear, and the number of metastable structures grows exponentially with N. This makes the problem of finding all stable configurations extremely difficult. The results of testing of the developed algorithm and of numerical study of the properties of the local potential energy minima for a system of point charges are presented.