Large charge fluctuations in the hierarchical Coulomb gas

The two-dimensional one-component plasma (OCP) is a model of electrically charged particles which are embedded in a uniform background of the opposite charge, and interact through a logarithmic potential. More than 30 years ago, Jancovici, Lebowitz and Manificat discovered an asymptotic law for probabilities of large charge fluctuations in the OCP. We prove that this law holds for the hierarchical counterpart of the OCP. The hierarchical model was recently introduced by Chatterjee, and is inspired by Dyson’s hierarchical model of the Ising ferromagnet.