Coulomb finite-size effects in quasi-two-dimensional systems

The model periodic Coulomb interaction (Williamson et al 1997 Phys. Rev. B 55 R4851) is a replacement for the Ewald sum, developed to reduce finite-size errors in the simulation of extended 3D systems. We investigate the generalization of this technique to quasi-2D systems; we show through testing in quantum Monte Carlo simulations that while the new interaction reduces the calculation time dramatically it does not reduce finite-size errors. We explain this by analysing the finite-size errors generated when using the Ewald sum.