Charged-particle excitation of ripplon fields

We investigate the static and dynamic interactions between an electron and the ripplon field on the planar surface of a nonpolar liquid. The shifted zero-point energy of the surface-ripplon field gives the correction to the electron image potential. The specific energy loss for an electron traveling parallel to the liquid surface is calculated and compared with losses to the volume for the case of liquid He. The quantization of the ripplon field on a spherical drop is also derived, and the Hamiltonian for the electron-drop system is obtained. This allows us to analyze the static electron-drop interaction.