DOMAIN ENERGIES OF THE DIPOLAR LATTICE GAS

We analyze the low-temperature behaviour of the dipolar lattice gas in two dimensions. Analytic expressions for the energy of single circular, stripe, rippled stripe, and faceted domains for this system have been obtained in the continuum limit. We have also obtained energy expressions for regular arrays of these structures. These analytic results are compared to the results of direct lattice sums to show the applicability of these expressions in predicting equilibrium domain sizes at low temperatures. The energetics of stripe domain rippling are analyzed. Brief comparisons are also made to Monte Carlo simulation results on this system.