American Physical Society, Physical review B, 8(83), 2011
DOI: 10.1103/physrevb.83.085409
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We study N interacting massless Dirac fermions confined in a two-dimensional quantum dot. Physical realizations of this problem include a graphene monolayer and the surface state of a strong topological insulator. We consider both a magnetic confinement and an infinite mass confinement. The ground-state energy is computed as a function of the effective interaction parameter α from the Hartree-Fock approximation and, alternatively, by employing the Müller exchange functional. For N=2, we compare those approximations to exact diagonalization results. The Hartree-Fock energies are highly accurate for the most relevant interaction range α≲2, but the Müller functional leads to an unphysical instability when α≳0.756. Up to 20 particles were studied using Hartree-Fock calculations. Wigner molecule formation was observed for strong but realistic interactions, accompanied by a rich peak structure in the addition energy spectrum.