Abstract
We present a numerical study of magnetic phases of the 2D electron gas near freezing. The calculations are performed by diffusion Monte Carlo in the fixed-node approximation. At variance with the 3D case we find no evidence for the stability of a partially polarized phase. With plane wave nodes in the trial function, the polarization transition takes place at rs = 20, whereas the best available estimates locate Wigner crystallization around rs = 35. Using an improved nodal structure, featuring optimized backflow correlations, we confirm the existence of a stability range for the polarized phase, although somewhat shrunk, at densities achievable nowadays in 2-dimensional hole gases in semiconductor heterostructures. The spin susceptibility of the unpolarized phase at the magnetic transition is approximately 30 times the Pauli susceptibility.