Electron-gas clusters: the ultimate jellium model

The local spin-density approximation is used to calculate ground- and isomeric-state geometries of jellium clusters with 2 to 22 electrons. The positive background charge of the model is completely deformable, both in shape and in density. The model has no input parameters. The resulting shapes of the clusters exhibit breaking of axial and inversion symmetries; in general the shapes are far from ellipsoidal. Those clusters which lack inversion symmetry are extremely soft against odd-multipole deformations. Some clusters can be interpreted as molecules built from magic clusters. The deformation produces a gap at the Fermi level. This results in a regular odd-even staggering of the total energy per electron and of the HOMO level. The strongly deformed 14-electron cluster is semimagic. Stable isomers are predicted. The splitting of the plasmon resonance due to deformation is estimated on a classical argument.