Spontaneous polarization of the neutral interface for valence asymmetric coulombic systems.

In this paper, we discuss the phenomenon of a spontaneous polarization of a neutral hard planar interface for valence asymmetric Coulombic systems. Within a field theoretical description, we account for the existence of nontrivial charge density and electric potential profiles. The analysis of the phenomenon shows that the effect is related to combinatorics in relation with the existence of the two independent species cations and anions. This simple and basic feature is related to the quantum mechanical properties of the system. The theoretical results are compared with numerical simulations data and are shown to be in very good agreement, which a fortiori justifies our physical interpretation.